What 
shall 
we do 



Ireland ? 




WALLACE CARTER. 



PRICE SIXPENCE. 



LINCOLN : 
Printed & Published by The Lines. Press, Ltd. 




How we Govern Ireland. 



A fortified Police Hut capable of 
holding six men. 



The profits, if any, on the sale of this pamphlet will 
be given to the fund on behalf of the Evicted 
Tenants on the De Freyne Estate. 



WHAT SHALL WE DO 



IN IEELAND? 



BY 

WALLACE OAETBE. 



LINCOLN : 

Printed by the Lincolnshire Press Company, Ltd. 
1903. 



^ 



H Lf Of is 
CONTENTS. 



PAGES. 

INTKODUCTION 5—9 

CHAPTEK II— The Land War 10—20 

III— The Congested Districts . . 21—33 

IV— The Problem Solved . . . . 34—45 

V— The History of The De Freyne 

Dispute . . . . . . 40 — 53 

VI— The Case for Lord De Freyne 54—63 

VII— Through The De Freyne E state 64—78 

VIII— Evictions 79—93 

IX— Observations .. v . .. 94—98 



INTRODUCTION. 



efscjseisdjs 



What is sometimes vaguely known as the 
Irish Question has had many phases. It is 
not always that the most important comes 
to the front. During the last few years, how- 
ever, Irish questions have undergone a con- 
siderable change. To-day the question which 
most concerns Irishmen is not, as many Eng- 
lishmen seem to think, Home Rule, but land 
On this question the tenant farmers of Union- 
ist Ulster march in line with Nationalist 
Ireland. While we in England are still argu- 
ing about Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bills, 
Irishmen, with an amount of practical 
common-sense with which they are seldom 
credited, while not for a moment modifying 
their demands for legislative indepen? 
dence are uniting to secure the immei- 
mediate settlement of the land troubles. 
This is a subject which gets nearer 
home to the hearts of the people than any 
other question can do. Unionist and Home 
Rulers have joined hands and are at one as 
to the cause of their troubles, and the way 
out of them. What these troubles are, and 
the way Irishmen would find a way out of 
them, I shall describe in detail later on. It 
is sufficient to say here that Irish people are i 
determined to put an end to the present con- 
dition of land tenure which has drained the 
country of its resources and driven their sons 
into e>xile. 

Here surely is an object lesson for English- 
men. For years we have been urged not to 
pay any attention to the Nationalists' de- 
mands, because Ulster, the seat of industry, 



INTRODUCTION. 



prosperity, and Protestantism, was against 
them. But to-day Ulster demands as strong- 
ly as Connaught the solution of the land 
question. Mr. T. W. Russell, the only Union- 
ist of any commanding ability which Ireland 
has produced of late years, is at one with Mr. 
William O'Brien as to the lines on which that 
solution should be framed. Never in the his- 
tory of any popular reform has public opinion 
been so thoroughly united as Irish opinion 
is on the land question. It is something en- 
tirely new even in the strange story of Ireland. 

My object in writing is to draw the atten- 
tion of my countrymen to the important 
changes which have come over the Irish 
question. What I have written is the re- 
sult of a deep devotion to the cause of Ireland, 
and a careful study of the various problems 
which vex that distressed country. 

In the province of Connaught it is possible 
to see within a miie of each other, the curse 
and the cure of the Irish land system. While 
there I made it my business to gather in- 
formation from everybody who could throw 
any light on the various aspects oi the 
problem. 

In the struggle which has been going on 
between Lord De Freyne and his tenants, we 
have a typical case of the differences which 
divide landlord and tenant, and which create 
the Irish question. On the neighbouring 
Dillon estate can be seen the successful solu- 
tion of these troubles, an estate which was 
once the scene of continual warfare, but is 
now the home of peace and contentment. 
Thus we have the main facts of the Irish land 
problem and the remedy, reduced to the 
limits of two counties. It seemed to me that 
if these facts were placed before the English 
people it might help them to understand the 



INTRODUCTION. 



Irish land question, rather more clearly than 
they have hitherto been able. I have, 
therefore, tried to describe the position of 
affairs in these counties as simply, fully and 
accurately as possible. 

I have given the case for Lord De Freyne, 
as it was given me by his agent, I have de- 
scribed the position of the tenants as I saw 
it, and as hundreds of them described it to 
me. As my sympathies were with the ten- 
ants I took special care to test their state- 
ments by enquiry from every official source 
which was open to me. What appeared to be 
unreliable I have suppressed. The case for 
Lord De Freyne I have not troubled to in- 
vestigate. I give in its entirety the story 
told me by his agent., and repeated by a neigh- 
bouring landlord. This chapter has been 
carefully revised by the gentleman referred 
to. Some of their statements made to me 
have been withdrawn, and new facts added. 
I have allowed them to alter their story in 
any way they wished. I accept it as the 
honest opinion of honest men, and present it 
along with the case for the tenants, leaving 
my readers to draw their own conclusions. 

On the Dillon estate I had the generous 
assistance of the Government officials and the 
delight of interviewing numbers of the people. 
Here, again, I wrote of things as I saw and 
heard them. I am well aware that the de- 
tails of the work of the Congested District 
Board are open to obvious criticism, but I 
do not think it necessary to enter into it 
here. I am only anxious to show what can 
be done to improve the conditions of the 
people;. 

What I have written will be of little value 
to the political expert, for whom these 
chapters are not intended. I have purposely 



INTRODUCTION. 



refrained from entering into the details of 
what men on either side think should be 
the plan of land settlement in Ireland. Such 
matters can be safely left with our statesmen, 
when the people have decided upon the prin- 
ciples which are to guide them. The man in the 
street, for whom I have written, will never 
trouble his head with the incidents of any 
Irish Land Bill. But he is prepared, or he 
will have to be, to decide upon the main lines 
of the policy which this country shall adopt 
in governing Ireland, and the attitude we are 
to assume in deciding between the men who 
cultivate the soil of Ireland, and the men who 
own it. 

I hope that the following Chapters, which 
were published in the "Lincoln Leader" in the 
course of my journalistic work for that 
paper, though lacking the precision of more 
leisured writing, may be of some little assists 
ance in helping my fellow countrymen to un- 
derstand the Irish land question. When these 
chapters were written the Land Conference 
had not met. The report of that Conference, 
signed by the chosen representatives of the 
tenants and the landlords, has produced an 
extraordinary situation. For the first time in 
the history of Ireland landlords and tenants, 
the English garrison and the Irish people, 
have agreed upon the lines on which the land 
question should be setttled. It now only re- 
mains for the Imperial Parliament to trans- 
late the principles embodied in the Land Con- 
ference report into an Act, But in so doing 
it is most important, that every care should 
be taken to ensure that the settlement shall, 
as far as possible, be permanently satisfac- 
tory to all concerned. This cannot be secured 
unless the question is thoroughly understood 
both inside and outside the House of Com- 



INTRODUCTION. 



mons. If what I havei written is of any as- 
sistance in this direction I shall be abundantly 
satisfied. 

In conclusion, I must express my grateful 
thanks to a number of Irish gentlemen, who 
most kindly and patiently assisted me in 
various ways. 

To the Right Hon. Horace Plunkett; Mr. 
Doarn, of the Congested Districts Board, and 
Messrs. Kelly and Haddock, two of his cour- 
teous assistants; Mr. S. Woulfe Flanagan, 
Lord De Freyne's agent. 

To Mr. John Dillon, M.P., Mr. William 
O'Brien, M.P., Mr. Michael Davitt, Mr. John 
Fitz Gibbon, C.C., Mr. Patrick Webb, C.C., 
Mr. Patrick Conry, C.C., Mr. Denis Johnston. 

G. WALLACE CARTER. 

Lincoln, March, 1903. 



THE LAND WAR. 



II. 

THE LAND WAE. 



If the average Englishman is to understand 
the Irish land question, he must first of all 
rid his mind of English ideas. Agriculture 
is certainly an important industry in Eng- 
land. But in proportion to the capital and 
numbers engaged therein, it is by no means 
the most important. When an English agri- 
cultural labourer is dissatisfied with his posi- 
tion and prospects he goes into the nearest 
manufacturing town, whereJ there is gener- 
ally a market for his labour. He can, 
and does, return to his country home at 
holiday times, so that the break with senti- 
mental attachments is slight, and more than 
compensated by improved economic condi- 
tions which the town affords. In Ireland 
everything is different. The Irishman who 
is born on the land, must either find a living 
on the land or leave his country altogether. 
Agriculture is practically the only industry. 
It employs 43.7 per cent, of the entire 
population, against 16 per cent, in England. 
Manufactures are so small in Ireland that 
only 17 per cent, are employed, as against 
40 per cent, in the industries of England. 
It will thus be seen that the prosperity of 
Ireland depends almost solely on the pros- 
perity of agriculture. Unfortunately, the 
term prosperity cannot, at present, be as- 
sociated with farming in Ireland. It is, 
however, a great mistake to imagine that 

10 



THE LAND WAR. 



prosperity cannot be secured. The condi- 
tions of agriculture are in some important 
respects better in Ireland than in England. 
In England the difficulty is to keep the 
people on the land. In Ireland the difficulty 
is to find land to keep the people on; the 
land is there, but it wants redistributing. In 
England we are sadly in need of small hold- 
ers ; in Ireland there are thousands of small 
holders who, if given a chance, would easily 
support themselves. The advantages of a 
peasant proprietorship no longer need. 1 argu- 
ing ; in Ireland there are thousands of peas- 
ants ready to become industrious and thrifty 
proprietors directly the law will allow them. 
Altogether the conditions of agriculture are 
such that, when present difficulties have been 
swept away by the establishment of a uni- 
versal system of Land Purchase, Ireland 
would speedily become the most prosperous 
agricultural country in the world. A people 
who have clung to the land with such marvel- 
lous pertinacity, who have learned to live 
cheaply, who are wonderfully intelligent, 
naturally optimistic, and highly moral, need 
only to be given the necessary opportunities, 
and they will create a measure of prosperity 
which would be impossible in other lands. 

What is it then that stands in the way of 
Ireland's happiness? To answer that ques- 
tion is to explain the whole position of Irish 
land tenure. I will endeavour to do this as 
simply and briefly as possible. To under- 
stand it we must again commence by put- 
ting out of our minds any comparisons with 
the position of agriculturists in England. 
The relations which exist between landlord 
and tenant in England are unknown in Ire- 
land. The English landlord owns not only 
his farm lands, but the farm houses and 
buildings as well. He makes improvements 

11 



THE LAND WAS. 



and alterations from time to time, and may 
be described, in many cases, as the father of 
his tenants, or, at least, as an active partner 
in their industry. He resides among his 
people, and their welfare is his welfare and 
concern. In Ireland everything is the op- 
posite of this. The landlord owns the land 
only. The buildings upon it are the pro- 
perty of the tenant, constructed by him or 
his fathers. Such improvements as are made 
on the farm, are made solely by and at the 
expense of the tenant. The landlord is a 
sleeping partner, drawing a regular income 
from the people, but seldom residing among 
them, frequently never even visiting his 
estate, and a complete stranger to his ten- 
ants. The only interest the majority of 
Irish landlords have taken in their estates 
has been to extract the uttermost farthing of 
rent from them. As the tenant, by diligent 
labour and expenditure, has improved the 
farms the landlord has demanded more and 
more rent. Is it to be wondered then 
that friction has been the rule, rather than the 
exception between landlord and tenant? Im- 
perial Parliament has fully recognised the 
anomalous position in which the two parties 
stand, and has frequently stepped in to pro- 
tect the tenant against the landlord. 

In 1881 Mr. Gladstone passed a Land Act, 
which may be described as the "Bill of Rights'' 
of the Irish tenant. This Act declared that the 
buildings constructed by the tenant were his 
own property, over which the landlord had 
no control, and for which he could not ask 
rent It further provided that the rent for 
the land should, on the application of the 
tenant, be fixed by Land Commissioners. 
Ine Commissioners, in fixing the rent, were 
not to include tenants' improvements. 
12 



THE LAND WAR. 



Thus it was hoped that the tenant would be 
protected against unjust landlords. The 
Commissioners are supposed to inspect the 
land and assess the rent, The tenant can 
then £0 into the Land Court and have the 
rent fixed according to the valuation. There 
is a Court of Appeal to which, if not satis- 
fied, either landlord or tenant can go, and 
demand a re-valuation. To my mind the 
chief value of this Act is the inalienable 
right which it established in the tenant's 
ownership of his buildings, and the valuable 
precedent for Government control of Irish 
land. When once it was enacted by law that 
the Government should step in between land- 
lord and tenant to fix the rent, there could 
be no logical reason why some day the Govern- 
ment should go one step further, and take' over 
the land altogether, giving the landlord a just 
equivalent for his rent. The Act of 1881 es- 
tablished not only the tenant's interest, but 
also the Government interest in the land. In 
its immediate and practical purposes, how- 
ever, it is to be feared the Act has failed to 
accomplish all Mr. Gladstone hoped for. It 
does not prevent! the tenant from being rented 
for his own improvements. The tenant will 
tell you to-day that if he improves his land, 
shows any signs of success, whitewashes his 
cottage, or makes the place comfortable, it 
has its effects on the Commissioners' assess- 
ment, and up goes the rent. The re- 
sult is a direct discouragement of all 
efforts of self-improvement, and a pre- 
mium is put upon neglect and sloven- 
liness. It very often happens that 
when a tenant goes into the Land Court his 
rent is raised. Now the only grounds on 
which' the rent could possibly be raised is on 
the improvement in the holding, and the only 



13 



THE LAND WAR. 



person who ever improves anything in Ire- 
land is the tenant. On the other hand the 
landlord does not appreciate having his rent 
lowered, and he is by no means always will- 
ing to accept the valuation of the Commis- 
sioners. But the result of an appeal on 
either side, seldom brings satisfaction. In 
fact both landlord and tenant mistrust both 
Commissioners and Land Courts, which, by 
the way, costs the poor country some 
£150,000 a year to keep going. Then the 
landlords have never accepted the creation 
of joint interest in the land, dual owner- 
ship, as established by the Act of 1881. They 
regard that as the source of all their troubles, 
so that when in power for a few brief months 
in 1885, a Conservative Government tried to 
put an end to this state of things, by allow- 
ing a landlord to sell his interest in the land. 

But the only person who would, or could, 
purchase the interest of both landlord and 
tenant, was the tenant. Thus, the Conserva- 
tives found themselves placed in a most un- 
enviable dilemma. They solved the difficulty 
in the only possible way by passing the 
famous "Ashbourne Act," which allowed and 
assisted the tenants to buy out the landlord 
wherever they could come to mutual terms 
The object of the framers of the Act was, evi- 
dently, to enable a landlord who had trouble- 
some tenants to get rid of them. The land- 
lords did not see that by doing this they were 
preparing a weapon for their enemies, and 
placing a premium on "troublesomeness." 
Tenants only had to make things sufficiently 
unpleasant for the landlord in order to get rid 
of him. In fact the Conservative Govern- 
ment of 1885 took another "leap in the dark," 
the full consequences of which the Irish land- 
lords have only recently realised. But the 

14 



THE LAND WAR. 



Act, having been passed, it was absolutely 
impossible to go back. The £5,000,000 ad- 
vanced by the Ashbourne Act, was soon 
swallowed up. Other Acts, on similar lines, 
with further grants, became necessary, until 
now the Government is pledged to advance 
over £40,000,000, to enable Irish tenants to 
buy out their landlords, and some 62,241 
tenants are purchasing their holdings. It is 
unnecessary to explain in detail the various 
Land Purchase Acts. Briefly, they may be 
described thus : Where a landlord is willing 
to sell and a tenant is willing to buy, the Gov- 
ernment, having satisfied themselves through 
the Land Commission officials that the farm 
is security for the sum agreed upon, loan the 
money for its purchase retaining for a certain 
period, if necessary, portion of it as. a guaran- 
tee for its repayment. The sum advanced is 
repaid by the tenant in half-yearly instal- 
ments, which represent principal and interest, 
the interest under the present law being fixed 
at 4 per cent, The half-yearly instalments 
are in all case® considerably less than the 
half-yearly rents formerly paid. The payment 
of them is spread over a period of from 49 
years, after which the holding becomes the 
property of the purchasing tenant or his heirs. 
When the Congested Districts Board inter- 
venes (as in the Dillon Estate) the Board pur- 
chases the Estate from the landlord, and 
afterwards sells to the tenants on very favour- 
able terms. The smaller holdings are enlarg- 
ed and other valuable assistance given, to the 
small tenants, so as to afford them an op- 
portunity of starting anew under conditions 
likely to secure them a successful future. In 
these cases also, the yearly instalments are 
arranged to run over a considerable period of 
years, after which the holding becomes the 
property of the former tenant. 

15 



THE LAND WAE. 



How smoothly and successfully Land Pur- 
chase has worked everybody, who knows any- 
thing of Ireland, agrees. The tenants secur- 
ed in their holdings, freed from the fear of 
+he landlord, proud in the possession of their 
own land have become thrifty, industrious, 
and contented. What is known as "crime" 
has vanished, and something approaching 
prosperity reigns. The working of the Land 
Purchase Acts have indeed proved a great 
object lesson in demonstrating the sterling 
qualities of the Irish people, when placed 
under decent circumstances. Their honesty 
and industry cannot be too highly praised. 
No better evidence of this can be given than 
the words of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
in the House of Commons, on March 25, 1902. 
Mr. Wyndham said, "Land Purchase has this 
merit, that the State has incurred no loss 
under it, and is, I believe, exposed to no 
risks. Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 
more than 30,000 purchasers are paying an- 
nually £171,214 to the State. I have no 
case of bad debts to offer." When we re- 
member that a few years ago many of these 
tenants were on the borders of starvation, at 
war with their landlords, evicted from their 
homes, and held down by armed police, the 
change to their present conditions is simply 
miraculous. I am convinced from my own 
observation that the Irish peasant is natur- 
ally honest, and given a fair chance will be- 
come prosperous and contented. Mr. Wynd- 
ham'? figures prove all and more than this. 

The very success of Land Purchase has pro- 
duced what some will consider a natural 
evil. It has created a favoured class among 
Irish tenants; those, who instead of paying 
rent, are purchasing their holdings, at less 
than they formerly rented them for Side by 
side with these are tenants whose landlord 

16 



THE LAND WAR. 



will not sell, and who are doomed to go on 
paying rent in perpetuity, with no hope of 
materially improving their conditions. As the 
Purchase Acts stand at present no tenants 
can participate in their benefits unless the 
landlord is willing to sell. Is there any 
wonder that the people rebel against 
this unjust, position of affairs? The 
fact is, the Acts are a direct encour- 
agement to the tenants to become 
troublesome. So long as tenants will pay 
their rents regularly a landlord, unless he is 
in financial difficulties, has no inducement to 
sell. His property gives him a certain stand- 
ing in the country and if it produces a fair 
return, no matter what the condition or 
troubles of the tenants may be, he has no 
desire to let his estates pass into their hands. 
The Irish people are fully alive to the posi- 
tion of affairs, and whenever there is a 
chance of compelling their landlord to sell his 
estate they are not slow to seize it, and agita- 
tion at once springs up. Whatever English 
people may think of this process it is the only 
natural result of the present state of the 
law. Competent authorities, who have little 
sympathy with the tenants, have admitted 
the justification of agitation. Thus, The 
O'Connor Don, one of the best known resi- 
dent landlords in the West of Ireland, at the 
landlords' conference in August admitted that 
where the tenant organization is strong and 
the agitation active, the collection of rent is- 
troublesome, eviction is made difficult, with 
the result that those districts are rewarded 
with rent reductions and land purchase. 
Judge O'Connor Morris, hearing the appeal 
of Messrs. Fitz Gibbons and Webb, who had 
been sentenced to two months' imprisonment 
in connection with the agitation on the De 
Freyne estate, said for all that had taken 

17 



THE LAND WAR. 



place on the De Freyne estate, the system of 
land purchase would, before the bar of history 
at least, be held responsible. He added : "In 
this unfortunate country abuses were allowed 
to grow up, and concessions as a rule were 
not extorted, except by agitation." 

In face of these admissions by a land- 
lord and one of His Majesty's judges, 
who can say that the tenants are not 
fully justified in an agitation, which 
frequently results in putting land pur- 
chase into operation? Could the position of 
the law be more absurd, and, one might add, 
more criminal ? The Government has provided 
an excellent plan for putting an end to land 
troubles in Ireland by land purchase. But 
to secure land purchase the tenants have to 
become troublesome; if they are trouble- 
some they are evicted from their holdings, 
imprisoned and become, in the eyes of the 
law criminals. Yet the Judge who sentences 
them to imprisonment says they are justified 
in all they have done. Under the circum- 
stances one would have thought the Govern- 
ment would, at least, have stood aside and 
allowed landlord and tenant to fight the 
matter out. Instead of doing so, however, 
they have placed the forces of the Crown at 
the disposal of the landlords. The landlords' 
interests have been protected at every point ; 
their rent^ collected and their decrees carried 
out. All this; was done at enormous expense to 
the people. Here is a pretty picture of "gov- 
ernment," in a civilised country twenty cen- 
turies after Christ ; brought about simply 
because the English Parliament would not 
carry out to its logical conclusion legislation 
which has proved a remarkable success wher- 
ever it has been adopted. 

As things have been in the past the Irish 
18 



THE LAND WAR. 



people were drawn up into two hostile 
camps, and to all intents and pur- 
poses! a state of war existed. On the one side 
we find practically the whole of the people 
organised under the banner of the united 
Irish League. The avowed object of the 
League is to carry out the Purchase Acts by 
compulsion ; to win by agitation what Par- 
liament ought to grant by legislation. The 
methods of the League are methods of the 
English trade unions drawn to perfection. 
The League is stronger and more effective 
than any Union we know of in England, for 
the simple reason that its membership con- 
sists of not merely a majority or even the 
whole of the workers in a certain industry, 
but the nation. Against the Irish nation we 
had the Irish landlords, and those who are 
interested in retaining landlordism, supported 
by the Government and the forces of the 
Crown. I have said a state of war existed in 
Ireland, and one can liken it to nothing else. 

Ordinary law was suspended, and something 
approaching martial law substituted. Be- 
cause no ordinary magistrates and no jury 
would convict men on charges which are 
purely political, popular and elected magi- 
strates have been deposed, and the Govern- 
ment has the power of bringing men to "jus- 
tice" before special magistrates, who have 
been appointed for the express purposes of se- 
curing convictions. Public meeting, trade 
unionism, free speech, a free press, are 
"crimes" in Ireland, for which men may be 
imprisoned, under the most cruel restrictions 
for lengthy periods. Ordinary crime, crime 
as we know it in England, is practically un- 
known in the rural districts. Yet the country 
side is lined with armed police, armed with 
revolvers and carbines, as well as the ordi- 

19 



THE LAND WAR. 



nary truncheon, mounted on bicycles, ready 
to pounce upon the most unoffending persons 
who may have the temerity to advise the 
people to resist the arbitrary power of the 
landlords. At various intervals, through 
what are known as the disturbed districts, 
block houses, fully protected and loop-holed, 
have been put up, in order to more easily 
hold the people in subjection. The cost of 
thus garrisoning Ireland is, of course enorm- 
ous. In proportion to its population the 
police cost is heavier than that of England ; 
whereas but for the work of upholding land- 
lordism it need not be more than a quarter 
as much. As I shall subsequently show when 
once the cause of discontent has been re- 
moved, ordinary crime almost vanishes. 
Ilan died in a proper manner the Irish are the 
easiest people in the world to govern. No 
people so fully recognise the great moral 
laws of right and wrong ; no people so quick- 
ly respond to kindness and sympathy ; no 
people are so ready to forget and forgive, or so 
anxious to be forgiven. The question English 
men have to ask themselves is how long 
they will be content to force Ireland into dis- 
content for the sake of maintaining land- 
lordism, when, by one simple Act, Ireland 
could be made the most contented; and, I 
will add, weighing every letter as I write it, 
the most loyal people within the British Em- 
pire. 



20 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



III. 

THE CONGESTED DISTEICTS. 



So far I have only dealt with the land 
problem in general. But if one wishes to see 
the trouble in its most acute form, one has 
to go into the congested districts of Con- 
naught.. I spent some! weeks; there, and what 
I write is from what I have seen and heard 
from the people themselves, from their lead- 
ers, and from friends and agents of the land- 
lords. A large portion of these districts were 
unoccupied fifty years ago, consisting almost 
entirely of bog land which nobody ever 
thought of attempting to cultivate. Running 
through the bogs, however, is some very fine 
land, which to-day is used for grazing farms 
and accordingly very sparsely populated. I 
stayed at Castlerea and one day, driving out 
in the direction of Loughlynn, I passed 
through a district in which the cabins 
were only separated by a few yards, 
Another day I drove in an opposite direction, 
and as far as the eye could see there was not 
a single habitation to be found. Thus, within 
a few miles of each other we have the most 
distressing congestion, and the equally dis- 
tressing absence of population. 

It is most important that English people 
should understand that these districts need 
not be congested, if the land were properly 
distributed. In County Mayo, the Westporti 
Rural Council has recently published a most 
valuable report, which shows that the evil is 
an artificial evil which can and ought to be 

21 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



remedied. I will set forth the facts of the 
case as clearly as possible : 

The population of the Westport Union ia 
37,361. 

The area is 349,819 acres. The number 
of occupiers is 5,322, This should give 
each occupier at least 50 acres. 

But of the 5.322 occupiers, 3,041 possess 
such small and poor holdings, that they are 
rated under £4; of the remainder, 1,048 
are rated from £4 to £8. 

Who then holds the land? 

Sixty-six graziers hold 99,180 acres. 

Thirteen landlords graze 52,145 acres. 

These seventy-nine individuals hold as 
much land as the whole of the remaining 
37,302 inhabitants of the district. 

Of the sixty-six graziers only five are 
residential, 18 are shopkeepers in the town 
of Westport, 9 are professional men, 4 
are bailiffs. 

Thus, we see the great mass of people are 
kept off the land, kept in hopeless distress 
for the sake of a few individuals who are not 
dependent on the land for their living. In- 
deed, it is very doubtful whether any of them 
are making a profit out of their grazing. As 
the report says : "The grazing ranches of 
this Union are not, generally speaking, rich 
fattening lands, suitable for permanent pas- 
ture, but are mostly reclaimed lands, which, 
for want of periodical tillage, and owing to 
the exhaustion caused by the rearing of young 
stock, have largely lapsed back into heather, 
fern, and rushes, while eminently fitted for 
the mixed tillage and pasture which small 
cultivators and their families could pursue 
with profit." At present these lands are held 
22 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



on the eleven months' system, which is, in 
point of fact, no tenure at all, and could be 
resumed at once without injustice and without 
compensation. Thus, without injuring anybody 
this congested district could, by the adoption 
of Land Purchase, be split up into small 
holdings, capable of supporting the people. 
What is true of the Westport Union, is true 
of the whole of the congested areas. 

Probably the districts would never have be- 
came thickly populated but for the clearances 
which took place in the middle of last cen- 
tury. After the great famine many of the 
landlords cleared the people off their estates ; 
and in place of the small holdings establish- 
ed vast grazing farms. Many of the people 
who were thus cast adrift emigrated to 
America, but a large number settled on these 
bog lands of Connaught, and, with a heroism 
born of necessity and want, commenced to 
make a home in the black marshy wilderness 
of the west. So thickly did they settle that 
most of the holdings are but a few acres in 
extent. The good land had been tenanted 
before they came ; so, in order to live, they 
had to set to work to cut away the bog and 
reclaim the land. 

Let me describe as briefly as cir- 
cumstances will allow, the position of 
these tenants. First of all, having secured 
their little patch of bog they commenced, 
with the help of wife and children, to put 
up some sort of a house. Many of these are 
made of mud and stone; but the majority 
of stone only. This stone is found in the 
neighbourhood, and with their own hands, 
they carried the stones from the hills, 
and built the little home. From the neigh- 
bouring town window frames and perhaps 
doors were bought ; but with this exception 

23 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



every stick and stone in the cabin was put 
there by the tenant. The rushes for the 
thatch were pulled from a neighbouring 
swamp. Most of the cabins consist of one 
or, at the most, two compartments. Here 
the family, and often the cattle too, find 
shelter. A few of them have been able to 
build out-houses for their cattle. When the 
cabin was built, the harder and more hope- 
less task of reclaiming the bog commenced. 
What this meant only those who have seen 
the work in progress can form an idea. The 
bog has to be cut away to the depth of 
several feet, and then drained. Those who 
know anything of draining fenlands on the 
East Coast of England, will know something 
of what these poor Irish peasants had to at- 
tempt. To the ordinary mind the work of 
reclaiming the bog may sound simple enough. 
So it is when carried out on an extensive 
scale, with the aid of the best advice and un- 
limited capital. But as the work' was and is 
done by these Irish peasants, the draining and 
reclaiming of the bogs can only be compared 
to the Israelites making bricks without straw. 
Without the aid of modern science, or machin- 
ery ; often enough without the aid of any 
beast of burden, these poor creatures, with 
their own hands, dug out the bog and carried 
it away on their backs. Even where they 
were fortunate enough to possess an ass, or 
very rarely a horse, it is impossible sometimes 
to utilise them ; the bog is so marshy that 
no ladened animal can find a foothold. 

In this work the women and children joined 
with the men. Indeed, a considerable pa; t of the 
work has fallen upon the women. And to- 
day, in the West of Ireland, it is a common 
sight to see a woman with a pannier strapped 
to her shoulders, as though she were a beast 
of burden, bending almost double under a load 

24 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



of turf. Some of them have to carry these 
loads long distances over rough roads ; roads 
which tire even the active and unburdened 
traveller. I once met a woman, who had to 
carry her load fully a mile; her husband, 
like most of the men from the West of Ire* 
land, was in England earning in the English 
harvest fields, the money to pay the land- 
lord's rent. When the bog has been cut 
away, then soil or gravel has to be dug out of 
the highlands and carried in the same manner 
from the hills back to the reclaimed land. 
Then manure had to be bought, on trust 
generally, and out of this land, Avhich he has 
created by the sweat of his brow, the tenant 
tries to make a living. 

Even supposing the landlord recog- 
nised that any value there might be 
in the land was the sole property 
of the tenant, and continued to charge the 
same rent, as when the tenant first entered, 
it would not be possible to make a living out 
of the holding. Accordingly, every year 
throughout these congested districts, every 
able-bodied man, nay every youth capable of 
holding a hay fork, comes over to England for 
the harvest. Many of them stay here after 
harvest is past and find employment as la- 
bourers in the foundries. I visited dozens of 
homes on the De Freyne estate where the 
father and sons lived in England for nine 
months of the year, in order to be able to 
pay their rent and keep their home in Ire- 
land. Help also comes from America. Every 
Irish girl in these districts, when she reaches 
the age of fifteen, begins to think of going to 
America. And in a year or so later to 
America she goes, and then every month 
there comes back to Ireland practically every 
penny she can save. The manner in which 
the Irish children in America support their 

25 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



parents would be a revelation to English 
poor-law guardians, who have the greatest 
difficulty in getting children to support their 
parents in old age. Not a penny of the land- 
lord's rent in these congested districts comes 
out of the land, but from the labours of sona 
and daughters in England and America. 

The pathetic attachment which binds the 
Irish people to their homes, even in the most 
desolate spots, is simply beyond all under- 
standing. Men will cheerfully endure banish- 
ment from their families for months together 
in order to retain their holdings. Meanwhile 
the work of the little place is done by the 
women. They sow the crops, weed them, 
and gather them in. But what can one or 
two women do with even an acre of land? A 
woman in the years when the children are 
coming is left alone for months, forced to 
work as slaves in American plantations 
seldom worked, in order to grow the crops, feed 
herself and her children, and keep the house 
together. But for the heroic generosity of 
friends and neighbours many a poor woman 
would break down utterly. Those who are 
little better off than herself will freely give 
their labour and food, as long as they have 
strength and substance left. But, mean- 
while, the landlord has increased the rent, 
and for land that a few years ago was value- 
less the tenant has to pay the price of good 
land. For years the tenant will struggle on, 
every year seeing his difficulties increase. He 
hr.3 not only arrears of rent, but is over- 
drawn at the bank, and in debt to the shop- 
keepers. 

How has the family been living all 
this time? The majority of the people live 
on Indian meal and potatoes. Including 
what they grow themselves, the total value of 
their food in some cases does not exceed four 
26 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



shillings a week! They could not even get 
Indian meal, if it were not for the goodness of 
the shopkeepers, who frequently trust the 
people for more than they could realise if they 
were to sell them up. The shopkeepers say 
they seldom, if ever, lose their money if the 
people are ever able to pay. The Irish peas- 
ant will almost starve rather than fail to 
pay anybody who has trusted him. 

When the tenant gets into arrears with his 
rent he is unable to take advantage of the 
Act of 1881. For this reason. He is afraid to 
go into the Land Courts to have a fair rent 
fixed, because if he does so the landlord im- 
mediately comes upon him for the arrears. 
So, even if he gets a reduction in rent which 
is worth something to him when the law costs 
are paid, his last state is worse than the 
first. The landlord, angry at being taken 
into the Court, enforces the immediate pay- 
ment of arrears, and the tenant, unable to 
meet them, has to go out. The result is that 
for a number of the men, who most need their 
help, the Land Courts are useless. So they 
struggle on, get deeper into the mire, and at 
last the landlord proceeds against them and 
eviction follows. What an eviction is like, I 
will describe later on. It often happens that 
an eviction takes place while the tenant is 
in England, and for fear of worrying him no 
word of what has happened is sent until he is 
about to start for home. But what must be 
his feelings when he comes back to find his 
wife and children homeless, and his little 
cabin and land, made by his own labour, in 
the hands of a stranger? Remember for 
how many years he has struggled to make 
the little place. Remember how passionately 
the Irish peasant is attached to his home, and 
then say is it strange if, in a moment of 
grief and anger, there was sometimes viol- 

27 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



ence and bloodshed? The evicted tenants, 
have, however, shown a marvellous restraint 
under these terrible circumstances. In spite 
of the inducements to crime, there is less 
in these districts than in peaceful England. 
But for the fact that the Irish people are op- 
timistic beyond reason, are deeply religious, 
have faith in their organisations, trust in 
their leaders, and believe they will win back 
their homes in time, Ireland, instead of being 
the most crimeless country on the face of the 
globe, would be a land seething with murder 
and anarchy. 

I have explained why it is that tenants 
often dare not take advantage of the Act of 
1881, to have their rents judicially fixed. But 
even when they do, it often happens that they 
are rented on their own improvements. One 
of the better class tenants in Co. Mayo, Mr. 
Jordan, of Ballaghaderreen, told me that he 
spent £300 in reclaiming six acres of bog 
land. The result was that in 1889 his rent 
was increased by £9. There was more land 
on his farm which might have been reclaimed, 
but he made up his mind he would never re- 
claim another yard so long as it was possible 
for the landlord to penalise his industry. I 
came across numbers of similar cases, but 
this perhaps is the most striking. On every 
hand you hear similar stories. Every rood 
added to the fruit bearing earth, every im- 
provement to the drainage of the bog, every 
added comfort to the home means an increase 
of rent. Thus we see that industry, thrift, 
and even cleanliness are discouraged, since 
improvements of any description only lead 
to increased demands from the landlords. In 
most cases, of course, the landlord knows no- 
thing of the circumstances of his tenants, he 
leaves the whole matter in the hand of his 
agent. The more money an agent can ex- 

28 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



tract from the tenants the better agent he 
is supposed to be. But we cannot be sur- 
prised that the Irish peasants have made up 
their minds to rid themselves of both land- 
lord and agent. 

Perhaps some of my readers may think my 
picture of the condition of these congested 
districts is overdrawn, so I will conclude by 
quoting from a very able work on Ireland, 
which was published by the present Govern- 
ment. It is "Ireland : Industrial and agri- 
cultural," issued this year by the Department 
of Agriculture, of which the Right Hon. 
Horace Plunkett is the head. The following 
extract will be found on pages 259 — 261 : — 

The great majority of the inhabitants 
were in possession of small plots — they 
could hardly be called farms — generally 
about 2 to 4 statute acres in extent. The 
rents for these holdings varied from a few 
shillings to several pounds a year ; in most 
cases rights of turbary (i.e., rights of cutting 
turf for fuel) and rough commonage grazing 
rights were appurtenant to the holdings, 
and frequently the tenants possessed the 
right of cutting and gathering seaweed for 
manure or kelp burning. The plots were 
usually planted with potatoes and oats, and 
the methods of cultivation were extremely 
primitive ; there was no rotation of crops, 
no adequate supply of manure, and no 
proper system of drainage, whilst the 
breeds of live stock were worn out and of 
little value. The result was that the in- 
habitants were forced to depend very 
largely upon certain secondary sources of 
income of an uncertain and varying nature. 
Many "congests," as they are locally 
known, received occasional gifts from rela- 
tives in America, whilst weaving, knitting, 

29 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



and sewing formed other small subsidiary 
sources of income. The results of sea- 
fishing helped the families dwelling along 
the coast to eke out a scanty living, whilst 
those living inland depended largely upon 
the wages earned during some months of 
the year as migratory agricultural labour- 
ers in England or Scotland. Thus in most 
cases the people did not really live on the 
produce of their holdings, but rather on 
some secondary source of income, such as 
field labour in England or Scotland; they 
paid a rent for their holding, generally not 
because of its agricultural value, but rather 
because it was necessary to have some 
home for their family. IN A GOOD YEAR 
MANY OF THE INHABITANTS WERE 
LITTLE MORE THAN FREE FROM THE 
DREAD OF HUNGER, WHILST A BAD 
YEAR, ARISING FROM THE COMPLETE 
OR PARTIAL FAILURE OF THEIR 
CROPS, PRODUCED A CONDITION OF 
SEMI-STARVATION. 

The following significant description of 
the poverty prevailing in the congested dis- 
tricts — compiled from the evidence of Mr. 
W. L. Micks, given before the Royal Com- 
mission on local taxation — is incorporated 
in the Special Report, presented by Lord 
Balfour of Burleigh, and Lord Blair Bal- 
four : "In the congested districts there are 
two classes, namely, the poor and the desti- 
tute. There are hardly any resident 
gentry; there are a few teachers and of- 
ficials; but nearly all the inhabitants are 
either poor or on the verge of poverty. . . 
The people are very helpful to one another 
— the poor mainly support the destitute." 

The Board collected and published in its 
first report considerable information as to 
the income and expenditure of typical 

30 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



families in the congested districts. The 
following are samples: — 

Receipts and expenditure of a family in 
comparatively good circumstances, the re- 
ceipts being derived from agriculture, mi- 
gratory labour, and home industries : 

RECEIPTS. 

£ s. d. 

Sale of cattle 6 

Sale of sheep 2 10 

Sale of pigs 3 

Egg? 4 

Migratory earnings of men 10 

Childrens', as servants 6 

Knitting, sewing, etc 7 10 

Miscellaneous sales of kelp, but- 
ter, fish, fowl, etc 2 



Total 41 



EXPENDITURE. 

£ s. d. 

Flour or baker's bread 9 2 

Tea 6 14 

Indian meal 3 18 9 

Sugar 2 3 4 

Fish and bacon 2 

Salt and soap 10 

Oil and candles 15 

Clothing (exclusive of puchases by 
migratory labourers while ab- 
sent from home 6 

Rent — 1 10 

County cess 5 

Church dues, etc 10 

Tobacco 3 

Furniture, etc. ... — - 10 

For replacing or exchanging cat- 
tle 2 

Young pig 10 

Bran — 10 

Carts, implements, etc 10 

Artificial manures 10 

Total ... ... 42 15 

31 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



Receipts and expenditure of a family in 
the poorest possible circumstances, the re- 
ceipts being derived from agriculture and 
labour in the locality: 

RECEIPTS. 

£ s. d. 

Eggs «- ... 1 3 

Sixty days' labour at Is 3 

Herding cattle 4 



Total 8 3 

EXPENDITURE. 

£ s. d. 

Rent -- 10 

County cess 2 

Meal 5 17 

Clothing — 10 

Groceries 4 

Total 11 9 



The home produce consumed by the 
family was valued at about £6. 

These facts and figures speak eloquently 
for themselves, and show that in some con- 
gested districts, at the time the Board was 
established, the value of the produce of 
some of the small holdings, together with 
the earnings and receipts of the family 
from every other source, did not exceed a 
total of £15 a year. Even in the less dis- 
tressed portions of the congested districts 
the standard of living was low, the diet of 
the poorest section of the people being al- 
together vegetable, with the exception of 
salt fish and bacon at times, which was 
used more as a relish than as an article of 
food. The houses, furniture, and bedding 
were too often unhealthy, mean, and com- 
fortless, and the clothing frequently ragged 
and scanty. 

32 



THE CONGESTED DISTRICTS. 



When it is remembered that the landlords 
have always endeavoured to make out that 
there is no discontent in Ireland, except what 
is created by agitators, the above picture, 
drawn by an official of the present Govern- 
ment, is most convincing. The condition of 
these people can be improved to-morrow, if 
the Government will only give the word. 
Knowing this it requires no agitation to make 
the people discontented. Men who would not 
be discontented under such conditions would 
be unworthv of their manhood. 



33 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



IV. 
THE PKOBLEM SOLVED. 



For years the peasants in the congested 
districts of Ireland have been fighting for con- 
ditions which would make it possible to live 
on their holdings. Fighting against increas- 
ed rents, fighting for larger holdings, fighting 
in order to get hold of the vast unpopulated 
grazing lands, and last of all fighting for right 
to purchase the land, the value of which they 
have themselves created. The fight has not 
been waged without much misery and hard- 
ship. But you may search the country in 
vain to find a man who thinks nothing has 
been gained. Concessions have been wrung 
from the British Parliament, which would 
certainly not have been granted had not the 
people fought for them. This is admitted on 
all hands to-day, and I now propose to de- 
scribe an estate where the warfare has ceased, 
the victory completely won; where peace, 
contentment, and prosperity reign. This is 
on what was, and will probably always be 
known as the Dillon estate. The estate in 
question was the property of Lord Dillon, con- 
sisting of over 90,000 acres, situated almost 
entirely in County Mayo. There were 4,200 
tenants on the estate, the great majority of 
whom lived on the bog lands, while the 
greater part of the estate was let out into 
large grazing farms. Indeed, the estate was 
typical of the congested district which I de- 
scribed in the previous chapter. The Dillons 
had a fine Mansion, known as Loughlynn 

34 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



House, a stately Elizabethan residence, stand- 
ing in a beautifully wooded and watered park 
of some 700 acres. The home for a prince. 
And princes, indeed, might the Dillons have 
been among their people, had they lived 
among them and cared for them. But for 
eighty years a Lord Dillon has never been 
known to reside at Loughlynn House. I 
spent many happy days in this district, com- 
ing into contact with the generous warm- 
hearted people, who would have been ready 
to worship a landlord who had done any- 
thing to win their affections. I wandered 
through the stately rooms of Lord Dillon's 
mansion, looked out from the windows, and 
stood spell-bound at the magnificent view 
which stretched over the lawn, over tree tops, 
over lake and rills, over fields and woods, to 
the white thatched cottages of the peasantry. 
And I marvelled that any men, possessing such 
a home and such a people should have preferr- 
ed to have been one of a thousand peers in the 
London drawing-rooms, when they might 
have been kings and princes among the people 
of Mayo. But such is the deadly attraction 
of London, that Irish landlords forget their 
homes, forget the people by whose toil they 
exist in idleness, forget their duties to human- 
ity, and are content to drain the country side 
of its resources and squander them in another 
land. I do not say the Dillons did any of 
those things ; all I know is they left their 
demesne to be inhabited by their agents, and 
were unknown to their tenants. As for their 
treatment of their tenants, I did not trouble 
to enquire any further than facts and figures 
would show. But those facts and figures are 
startling enough. The rent roll of the estate 
rose from £5,000 in 1839 to £23,000 in 
1879. That vast increase in value was not 
brought about by anything which the Dillons 

35 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



did on the estate, but solely by the labour 
and industry of their tenants. It is not sur- 
prising, with these figures before us, to know- 
that whenever bad seasons came along Lord 
Dillon could not easily get his rents, and 
troubles broke out. It is because the people 
resisted the arbitrary demands of Lord 
Dillon's agents that they are to-day free and 
happy in the possession of their holdings. 
What some of these people endured only the 
wildest imagination can realise. Mr. John 
Dillon, in a speech in this district, last year, 
recalled a scene which he said he had wit- 
nessed hundreds of times, and which in a 
few words will show to what straits the 
people were forced. "Twenty-one years ago," 
he said, "in the dark black days of '79 I have 
seen hundreds of times a long string of starv- 
ing men and women standing shivering at 
the doors of the pawnshops in Ballaghaderreen, 
and pawning their beds from under them, in 
order to get a little Indian meal to keep body 
and soul together. And when we held the 
Claremorris meeting and asked the landlords 
for mercy, we got for answer extra police 
and hundreds of eviction notices. Then I 
swore, and the men who were with me, 
Michael Davitt and those who started the 
Land League, that so long as God gave us 
health and strength to fight the battle of the 
people we would declare war, implacable and 
unrelenting war upon landlordism in Mayo, 
until every landlord had been banished from 

the country." "Lord Dillon 

began to see that if the Nationalist party was 
ever united again, not a penny of rent would 
he collect, and like a sensible man, when the 
Congested District Board came along and of- 
fered him £290,000 for the estate, he ac- 
cepted it." 

36 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



In 1899 the troubles on the Dillon estate 
ended. The Congested Districts Board 
stepped in, and negotiated for the purchase 
of the estate, and Lord Dillon was bought 
out. But with the purchase of the estate the 
Board only commenced their work of trans- 
forming a dismal and discontented district 
into a bright, happy, smiling country. The 
first great task the Board set themselves to 
do was to re-divide the land. The grazing 
farms were cut up, and the tiny holdings en- 
larged. In some cases people were taken out 
of the congested districts and planted in new 
homes and new holdings. This enabled the 
Boarel to enlarge the holdings of those who re- 
in ained behind. The Board has sometimes ex- 
perienced difficulty in getting people to 
move out of the congested districts, although 
to do so meant greatly improved surround- 
ings. The reasons for this are natural. 
First, the people have a passionate love for 
the old home ; second, they feared to under- 
take increased financial responsibilities; 
thirdly, they have not been accustomed to 
look upon Government officials as their 
friends. The Board posseses compulsory 
powers of removal, which, however, are quite 
useless, as they can only be exercised by the 
consent of three-fourths of the people on the 
estate. Or an estate which is twenty 
miles long, it is impossible to get the people 
to understand the right and wrongs of in- 
dividual cases. Whenever Land Purchase be- 
comes general, and the necessity of removing 
people out of the bog is imperative, compul- 
sory powers will have to be secured. But it 
will also be necessary to place the working 
of the scheme in the hands of a popularly- 
elected body, whom the people trust. At the 
same time every praise is due to the officials 
of the Board for the tact they have 

37 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



shown in this matter. And they are to be 
congratulated on the wonderful success which 
has crowned their efforts. They have re- 
divided the estate, so that each holder has a 
piece of good arable land, a piece of grazing 
land, and a piece of bog land. 

The next great work after re-dividing the 
holdings was to re-drain the bogs. This has 
been an enormous undertaking. First of all 
the Aglora and Kilkelly rivers had to be 
deepened, and then miles of main and tribu- 
tary drains were cut. In this work the ten- 
ants themselves were employed, and were able 
to earn sufficient to enable numbers of them 
to remain in Ireland. Then new roads 
have been made in all directions, so 
that the tenants can get down to the bog to 
cut their turf with some degree of comfort 
and safety. 

The happiest day I spent in Ireland was in 
driving through this estate and seeing the 
work of improvement going on at every turn 
and in every holding. Mr. Doarn, the able 
superintendent of the work, very kindly 
placed me in charge of one of his officials, 
Mr. Cecil Kelley, who most courteously took 
me wherever I wanted to go, and told me all 
I wanted to know. One of our first visits was 
to Cloontrumper. Cloontrumper has a his- 
tory. Once upon a time it was the home 
of the peasantry. Then one day the fiat 
went forth, and though each man was ready 
to pay his rent he was turned out, and the 
little cabin he or his father had built was 
levelled to the ground. Some went to 
America, some to the bogs where they tried 
to make a new home. Then for fifty years 
there was the peace of desolation in Cloon- 
trumper, and the beast of the field roamed 
where once had been the happy homes of 

38 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



men. But once more the wheel of destiny 
has turned full round and the Dillons no 
longer hold power over the lives and homes 
of men. The desolate grazing farm has dis- 
appeared, and once more the homes of the 
people are built. The vast prairie is cut up 
into holdings of about 25 acres each. Each 
holding is surrounded by a wall, and entered 
by an ornamental gate. In the centre, with 
a garden in front, is a charming little house, 
the doors and windows of which are thrown 
wide open. There are dainty curtains in the 
windows, and bright flowers on the window 
sills, next year there will be ivy and creepers 
climbing over the doorway. Through the 
open doorway one catches a glimpse of spot- 
lessly clean floors, and tables as white as wood 
can be scrubbed. But it was my business to 
find out more than could be seen from the 
outside; so we walked up the garden path, 
and knocking, were soon made welcome. 
Mrs. Dolan was very busy; she had only 
been in her new home a few weeks, and she 
told us things wern't straight yet. But she 
soon hoped they would be when her son came 
home. Her son was harvesting in England, 
as usual. But now they had twenty-five acres 
of land they must have him back, and she 
did not think he would need to go again. 
We walked up the garden to the outhouse, 
where the cocks and hens, the cows and the 
pigs, each in their own compartment, greeted 
us joyously, as though they understood as well 
as anybody else that a new order of things 
had commenced to reign on the Dillon estate. 
As we walked back to the road again, Mrs. 
Dolan pointed out with pride the walls and 
fences they had put up ; she talked of the 
flower garden and the kitchen garden they 
hoped to plant; and, over and over again, 
repeated "it is so good to feel the land is our 

39 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED, 



very own." I went into other cottages, but 
the same tale was told everywhere, content- 
ment, happiness, a new zeal and energy; a 
new aspect of the Irish character, which we 
thought only showed itself in the far-off 
Colonies, where the sons of Erin found a land 
of liberty. If those cottages at Cloontrumper 
had been mansions, those little holdings, 
lordly parks, the owners could not have been 
happier, prouder, or more content with their 
lot. We drove past the police barracks, a 
decaying remnant of the bad old days when 
the Dillon rents were collected at the point 
of the bayonet. But there is no work for the 
police on the Dillon estate to-day, and before 
long the armed barracks will disappear. Then 
into another townland, where the tenants are 
in their old homes ; but the old homes have 
a strange newness about them. New win- 
dows, new doors, new roofs, new outhouses ; 
the tenants are straining every effort to keep 
pace with their neighbours. The Board is 
encouraging them by providing materials at 
cost price. But there is no philanthropy 
about it, everything is being done on strict 
business lines. "You see, sir, its different 
now," a tenant explains to me. I will not 
attempt to put his musical brogue into Eng- 
lish. "You see before we never knew but our 
rent would be raised; or may be that we 
might have to go out.. But now its our own, 
and so we are trying to make the best of it." 
Over and over again they told me "its so good 
to feel the land's our own ; and all we do to 
it is for ourselves and our children." I have 
said all this is being accomplished on busi- 
ness principles. So it is ; but to-day the 
Dillon tenants are paying 6s. 8d. in the «£ 
less to purchase their holdings than they 
were paying to rent them from Lord Dillon. 
Not a single tenant is behind hand with his 

40 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



payments, or is ever likely to be unless an 
unforeseen and unheard of calamity happens. 
Mr. Kelly told me that if a man ever got 
behind with his payments he was always will- 
ing and anxious to come and "work it out" 
on some of the works which the Board 
is carrying on. And what a change 

in the people is here. They are 

happy as the day is long. Many of 
them who a few years ago possessed no 
better means of conveyance than a donkey- 
cart, are now driving their jaunting cars, 
and a fine animal between the shafts too. I 
have not time to write now of all the Board 
is doing to improve horse-breeding and mule- 
breeding, of fresh seeds and new appliances 
for agriculture which they provide; or of the 
work of the parish committees in stimulating 
eelf-improvement in the home and on the farm. 
I could write of the enthusiasm with which 
the officials are doing their work, and the 
splendid character they give the people ; of 
the new life, new hope, new vigour which 
seems to permeate the very atmosphere. But 
enough has been said to show that here, in 
the darkest corner of Ireland, the land trouble 
has disappeared. Adopt the same policy 
throughout Ireland, and you have solved the 
Irish problem. Leave matters as they are, 
and this bright spot will but accentuate and 
increase the difficulties elsewhere. Even the 
improvements on the Dillon estate cannot 
be completed unless the scheme is carried out 
throughout the country. The very drainage 
cannot be made efficient, because the next land- 
lord refuses to allow it to be carried beyond 
the borders. While m another district the ad- 
joining property is being considerably en- 
hanced in value by the Dillon estate system 
of drainage, so whenever the Government 
wishes to purchase this latter estate they will 

41 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



have to pay for their own improvements. 

But matters of this sort are small, when 
compared with the more serious issues at 
stake. Side by side with all this new life, 
new hope, and new conditions which have 
transformed the Dillon tenants, are the hovels 
where the wretched tenants of Lord De Freyne 
are struggling with nature and adversity to 
pay an unending rent, in order to retain the 
right to keep the roof, which they have built, 
over their head, and the little patch of bog 
which they have re-claimed from the swamp. 
The Government has stepped in and saved 
tho Dillon tenants from the grasp of the 
landlord, but it is sending its armed police to 
enable Lord De Freyne to collect his rents. 

One of the happiest effects of Land Pur- 
chase has been the almost total disappearance 
of crime. A resident magistrate on the Dillon 
estate (Mr. Jordan) told me that in the Bal- 
laghaderreen Petty Sessional Court, which 
used to be held once a fortnight, they fre- 
quently used to have from sixty to* a hundred 
cases. But since Land Purchase ha® been in- 
troduced the number of case® has decreased 
so enormously that the Court now only meets 
once a month, and even then there are rarely 
more than ten cases. I heard similar accounts 
from other parts of the estate. This seemed 
to me such an important and interesting testi- 
mony to the benefits of Land Purchase that I 
made it my business to bring the matter 
before Mr. Horace Plunkett. He very kindly 
promised to- try and give me the official re- 
turns of police cases for the three years pre- 
vious to the purchase of the estate, and the 
three succeeding years. Unfortunately, he 
found no such returns were to be had. Had 
they been secured I feel sure a very wonder- 
ful result would have been seen. 

42 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



But even under the most adverse circum- 
stances, produced by Coercion Acts, Ireland is 
almost crimeless. The proportion of crim- 
inals to the population in Ireland is 744 per 
100,000. In England, where Coercion is un- 
known, it is 621 per 100,000; while in Scot- 
land it is 1,489 per 100,000. Crimes against 
property are fewer, in proportion, in Ireland 
than in Great Britain. In Great Britain the 
number of such crimes, according to last year's 
official returns, was 8,902. ■ This represents 
a proportion of one crime to 4,156 of the 
population. In Ireland the total of such of- 
fences was 956, or only one to 4,682 persons. 
In crimes against property accompanied with 
violence, the disparity is much greater. The 
total return in Great Britain was 2,465, or 
one for every 15,010 persons; while in Ire- 
land it was only 189, or one to 23,579 persons, 
such crimes, in proportion to the population, 
being 57 per cent, more in Great Britain than 
in Ireland. 

What minute proportions the criminal sta- 
tistics would assume if Coercion were abol- 
ished, and Land Purchase became universal, I 
can only leave to the imagination of the 
reader. 



43 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 




f 




44 



THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 



w 

CO 

< 
o 
D 

Q 



O 

t— ' -° 

£ CO 

-2 S 1 
•g o-S 

ft .2 
® o 3 

'CO „ "t? 



JS ©I 



J 


c3 


ft^ 


tt 


"o 


S 2 




u 


^ %. 


fe 


S 


- 1 o 


< 


El 


^W 



2 rQ 



45 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 



V. 

THE HISTORY OF THE 

DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 



I have made several references to the De 
Freyne estate, and as this estate has been, and 
is, the scene of a most unfortunate land war, I 
think it will be well to give some account of 
what has happened there during the last 
year. 

Thanks to the personal kindness of Mr. 
John Dillon, who gave me an introduction 
to Mr. John Fitz Gibbon, of Castlerea 
I was kindly received by the local Nationalists 
Mr. John Fitz Gibbon, who is the most 
prominent man in the district, has for many 
years been the chief adviser and friend of 
the tenants in this part of Ireland. He is a 
successful man of business, a devout Catholic, 
and a very ardent temperance reformer. As 
a local government administrator, Mr. Fitz 
Gibbon is a man of exceptional ability. He is 
chairman of the Roscommon County Council, 
chairman of the Castlerea Rural Council and 
Board of Guardians. Had he any desire he 
could have entered Parliament at any time 
during the last fifteen years ; he has pre- 
ferred to do the less conspicuous, but no less 
honourable work of guiding the national 
movement in his own county. From Mr. 
Fitz Gibbon, from reports which have appear- 
ed of cases brought before the magistrates, 
from conversation with hundreds of tenants 
on the estate, including Mr. Patrick Webb, 
the vice-chairman of the County Council, and 
from Lord De Freyne's agent, Mr. Woulfe 

46 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

Flanagan, I have gathered the facts of the 
history of the dispute. 

The De Freyne and Dillon estates adjoin 
each other, for several miles through the 
Counties of Mayo and Roscommon. Up to 
the time of the purchase of the latter they 
were alike in many respects; each having a 
large number of tenants living crowded to- 
gether on the bogs, as well as a number of 
grazing farms, supporting only a few in- 
dividuals. Each estate has been the centre 
of continual strife between landlord and 
tenant; in fact, whenever two or three bad 
seasons came together the people were render- 
ed destitute and desperate. The Government 
purchased the Dillon estate, but left the De 
Freyne tenants to the mercy of their land- 
lords. During the last three years the De 
Freyne tenants have been watching the im- 
proved conditions which have taken place 
throughout the Dillon estate. They could 
not understand why their neighbours were 
receiving such benefits, and themselves left 
out in the cold. The De Freyne tenants had 
to meet and compete with the Dillon tenants 
in the same markets, and they found they 
were no longer able to compete with them. 
So, when last year's harvest failed, and the 
prices of horse and stock declined, they decid- 
ed to ask for a reduction of rent, which would 
put them in something like the same footing 
as their neighbours on the Dillon estate. 
They asked for the same rent as the Dillon 
tenants were paying for purchase. How far 
the De Freyne tenants were justified may be 
gauged from the fact that Judge O'Connor 
Morris, in his charge to the grand jury at 
Boyle, in January last, said : 

"I say without hesitation that the tenants 
on the De Freyne estate and all circumstanced 
in the same way, have a great legitimate grier- 

47 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 



ance. . . . The tenants on the De Freyne 
estate live close to the Dillon estate, and they 
see the tenants on the Dillon estate, without 
a particle of right have received an enormous 
benefit which the tenants on the De Freyne 
estate have not received. One class is the 
favoured class, and the other class is the dis- 
favoured class. One class reminds me of the 
fat sheep put into a pen, and the other class 
of a number of lean goats put into a pen, with 
the result, and that necessary result that the 
tenants on the De Freyne estate are discon- 
tented, and in my opinion, naturally discon- 
tented. . . . Whatever may be said, this 
combination is the necessary and inevitable 
result of this system called Land Purchase. 
What must be the consequence, or in all 
probability will be the consequence? In a very 
short time these decrees .will be enforced. "The 
necessary result in three or four months hence 
will be disorder, confusion, and bad blood. 
And I pray God that crime and outrage may 
not follow. What is the further result? I 
greatly fear that in a few months the plan of 
campaign, with all its frightful consequences 
will follow, that existed in this country a few 
years ago — ruin to landlords, beggary and 
misery to hundreds of tenants. There can be 
no doubt that this system called Land Purchase 
increases in strength the cry for Compulsory 
Purchase." 

Well, the De Freyne tenants, having decided 
among themselves to ask for a reduction of 
rent, marched in a body to French Park, the 
residence of Lord De Freyne, to ask his lord- 
ship to meet them. It is a curious fact that 
the tenants did this without asking anybody's 
advice, and without any promptings from 
outside. Lord De Freyne, personally, is not 
unpopular with his tenants. His mother was 
one of the people ; he is a Roman Catholic, 
and resides for some period of the year on 
the estate. Accordingly the people had no 
fear in approaching him. Arrived at the 
park they found the gates shut against them. 
They were told that Lord De Freyne could not 
see them, and if they had anything to com- 
municate they must put it in writing, and his 
lordship would then consider it. So the ten- 

48 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

ants appointed a deputation to wait on the 
agent, Mr. Flanagan, consisting of the Very 
Rev. Canon White, Mr. Fitz Gibbon, Mr. 
Patrick Webb, and Mr. Wm. Ellwood. Mr. 
Flanagan refused to meet Mr. Fitz Gibbon, 
because he was not a tenant. The others 
were informed that no reductions could be 
made. 

Seeing that nothing could be gained by reason- 
ing with the landlord, the tenants asked Mr. J. 
Dillon to come down and advise them. They 
held a meeting at Lord De Freyne's gates, 
French Park, on November 17th, 1901, and 
Mr. Dillon reviewed the situation. He point- 
ed out that nothing could be done except they 
were thoroughly organised, so as to be strong 
enough to make things uncomfortable for 
Lord De Freyne. He advised them to join 
the United Irish League, so that they would 
be in a position to compel their landlord to 
come to terms. As there has been some 
considerable misrepresentation about this 
speech, I think it is well to say that Mr. 
Dillon did not advise the people to refuse to 
pay rents. He did not advise them to com- 
mence a struggle against the landlord; he 
merely advised them to organise, so as to be 
in a position to do something when the proper 
time came. There were several reasons for this. 
The chief was that the tenants were not or- 
ganised, and were not entirely united. Some 
of them preferred to borrow money to pay 
their rent rather than fight. Then, in spite 
of the dark history of the De Fr eyrie estate, 
and the appalling condition of the majority 
of the tenants, Lord De Freyne is not the sort 
ei landlord whom the Nationalist leaders would 
wish to push to extremes. He is a man 
whom they wish to see remain in Ireland 
when present troubles are past. As a result 
of this conference a number of the tenants 

49 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

paid their rents, although some of them 
had to borrow money to do so. 
A further number determined to hold out in 
the hope of a reduction, and fully a third of 
them were unable to pay, even had they 
desired to do so. A few days after the 
French Park meeting the tenants met again 
at night, to consider the situation. In fact, 
they had several meetings, and as they could 
only attend at night, and had no place large 
enough to meet in they met in the open 
air, and conducted their deliberations by 
torchlight. There was nothing terrible about 
this, although in certain quarters it gave rise 
to needless fear. For, in spite of Judge 
O'Connor Morris's predictions, there has not 
been a single case of violence on the part of 
the De Freyne tenants, from the beginning 
of their fight until this day. Shortly after 
the French Park meeting the tenants asked 
Mr. John Fitz Gibbon to meet them and talk 
the matter over. They were anxious to make 
a fight for a reduction of rent. Mr. Fitz 
Gibbon pointed out to them the serious 
nature of the conflict on which they were 
entering. But a large number of the 
tenants were in a desperate position, and 
were determined to go on. So Mr. Fitz 
Gibbon told them they must first of all raise 
a defence fund of 5s. in the £ on the value 
of their holdings to protect those who would 
suffer through eviction. This was agreed to, 
and the tenants subscribed something like 
£1,700 as a defence fund. 

Subsequently a deputation, consisting of 
Canon White, Messrs, Ellwood and Webb, saw 
Lord De Freyne, who received them very kind- 
ly. The deputation suggested a reduction of 
3s. in the £. Lord De Freyne would prob- 
ably have signed an agreement to that effect, 
but he said he feared it would be counted as 

50 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

a victory for the United Irish League. Mr. 
Webb, on the part of the tenants, undertook 
to publish a statement to the effect that the 
reduction of rent was a private arrangement 
between landlord and tenant, in which the 
United Irish League had no . part. This, of 
course, was absolutely true, as the League 
had, so far, not interfered in the dispute. 
Lord De Freyne undertook to consider the 
matter, and the deputation left him, con- 
fident that the dispute would be amicably 
settled. Unfortunately, their hopes were 
dashed to the ground. Lord De Freyne seems 
to have consulted with other landlords, and 
finally he refused any abatement. 

It seems to me perfectly idle to 
suppose that the tenants would have 
embarked on this fight had they not 
been forced into it by their economic 
position. Numbers of them had been pay- 
ing jtheir rent, and paying their arrears too, 
as long as they were able to do so. But the 
bad season, and the unequal competition of 
the Dillon tenants compelled them to make 
a stand for equal treatment. It cannot be 
too clearly understood that the struggle on 
the De Freyne estate commenced as a struggle 
for terms of bare existence. It was not a 
question of the tenants trying to make a 
better bargain with their landlord; it was a 
question of making terms in order to live. 
Rightly or wrongly, when Lord De Freyne 
refused those terms the tenants decided to 
hold the little money they had in their 
pockets, and try and compel him to listen to 
reason A year has gone past since they de- 
cided to fight, and the tenants have 
given up hoping to win a reduction of 
rent; but they hope, as a result of their 
struggle, that the day will soon come when they 
will be allowed to purchase their holdings. 

51 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

The happy position of their neighbours on the 
Dillon estate, a position won entirely through 
fighting the landlord, encouraged the De 
Freyne tenants to make a bold bid for 
liberty. 

But it was now the time for Lord De 
Freyne to make a move, in reply to the 
tenants. This he did with promptness, but 
with unnecessary harshness and severity. In- 
stead of taking the ordinary civil, or, as we 
should say in England, County Court pro- 
cess, he proceeded by the higher Courts. 
This had the result of increasing the costs to 
an enormous extent. Thus, where the rent 
owing was only £5, the costs amounted to 
£40. The result was that tenants, who 
would probably have borrowed, or begged the 
money to pay their rent, rather than be turned 
out of their little homes, were rendered 
absolutely helpless and hopeless when con- 
fronted with these enormous costs. Mr. 
Flanagan, Lord De Freyne's agent, told 
me, "We were determined to take the most 
powerful weapon we could to fight the ten- 
ants." There is, however, probably, more 
than appears on the surface in this extreme 
policy. Lord De Freyne is reported to be a 
poor man ; Mr. Flanagan told me the reason 
he did not consent to the tenants' demands 
was that he could not afford to do so. Is it 
at all likely, therefore, that he could afford 
to risk such heavy costs? If the fight is car- 
ried on to the bitter end there will be a 
large number of evictions, and in addition to 
losing his costs, Lord De Freyne will lose his 
rents and have to pay the emergency men, 
who are placed in charge of the evicted ten- 
ants' houses. To-day the fight is costing 
Lord De Freyne something like £50 a week ; 
if it is continued it will cost, him nearer £500 
a week. Nobody supposes Lord De Freyne 

52 



HISTORY OF THE DE FREYNE DISPUTE. 

is finding the money to carry on the struggle. 
Many people think he has no desire to carry 
it on, or that he even wished to enter upon 
it. The plain truth of it all is that 
Lord De Freyne is associated with the 
landlords' combine, and he is no longer the 
master of his own destinies. The landlords' 
trust, of whom Lords Ardilaun, Barrymore, 
Londonderry, Lansdowne, and the Duke of 
Abercorn are the directors, control the busi- 
ness. These men have imagined that if the 
tenants succeeded in forcing Lord De Freyne 
to sell, every landlord in Ireland would, in 
turn, have to yield to the same force. So 
the fight goes on. It may be continued for 
years, or peace may come to-morrow. There 
can be peace on the De Freyne estate twenty- 
four hours after the noble lords named above 
decide to make terms with the tenants. Peace 
will come when the noble lords are will- 
ing to allow the tenants to become the owners 
of lands, the value of which the tenants have 
created. There are great issues at stake, issues, 
the moulding of which the brave but poverty- 
stricken tenants of Lord De Freyne are 
slowly but surely shaping. The end must 
come, sooner or later. Whether it comes 
soon or late it will be the same. There is 
only one class of men who can, or will farm 
the lands of Roscommon, and those are the 
men whom to-day Lord De Freyne is casting 
out on the roadside to be the prey of the 
chilling blast and the biting frost. 

I have said there are great issues at stake. 
There are. Issues on which the future of Ireland 
may depend. If the tenants win the right 
to purchase their holdings, it will not only 
be a victory for themselves, but for all Ire- 
land. It will be a victory for compulsory 
Land Purchase, which means peace, content^ 
ment and good government. 

53 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



VI. 
THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYffE. 



I have thought well for various, reasons 
to devote a special chapter to Lord De 
Freyne's side of the case in the dispute, which 
is now going on between himself and his 
tenants. 

On the day I arrived at Castlerea I made 
it one of my first duties to call at the estate 
office, "Arm Lodge," to interview Lord De 
Freyne's agent, Mr. S. Woulfe Flanagan. 
Mr. Flanagan belongs to an old Irish family. 
One of his brothers is on the staff of the 
London Times, and is the author of the well- 
known "Parnellism and Crime." 

Mr. Flanagan received me most kindly, and 
willingly consented to give me any informa- 
tion I desired as to the cause, history and 
progress of the dispute. He first of all 
humorously warned me that he was an old 
Tory, and that he did not suppose I should 
agree with his views. My reply was that I 
had not come to Ireland to hear men's views 
so much as to find out facts. 

"For several years," commenced Mr. Flanar 
gan, "we have had what the Nationalists call 
a 'land war' on Lord De Freyne's estate. AtJ 
periodical times the tenants have refused to 
pay their rents. But up to last November 
there has been a period of comparative quiet ; 
and the tenants had not only paid their 
rents regularly, but were paying up their ar- 
rears as well. With every year's rent num- 

54 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



bers of them were paying half a year's arrears 
in addition. All was going well until last 
November, when Mr. Dillon came down here. 
He spoke at French Park, and advised the 
tenants to strike against paying rent audi 
make things intolerable for Lord De Freyne, 
so that he would be glad to sell out and get 
rid of the estate. In this way, Mr. Dillon said, 
they would be able to force on a demand to 
sell the estate at a reduction of 6s. 8d. in the 
£ on their present rentals, similar to that 
given by the Congested Districts Board on 
the Dillon estate." 

Mr. Flanagan said he was "quite con- 
fident that the people would never have com- 
menced the dispute if they had not been 
urged on by paid agitators. There had cer- 
tainly not been quite such a good year for 
the stock and the horses; but that was not 
a sufficient reason for the people acting to- 
gether in this way, and refusing to pay rent." 

In reply to my question as to whether it 
was not natural for the De Freyne tenants 
to demand the same conditions as enjoyed by 
the Dillon tenants, Mr. Flanagan said it was 
"certainly very human, but it was a Socialis- 
tic doctrine which could not for a 
moment be accepted. The rents had: 
been fixed by law for a period 
of fifteen years, and it was most wrong and 
immoral to seek to induce people to break 
their bargains and refuse to pay rent. The 
fact was that the fall in the price of cattle, 
and the sale of the Dillon estate vas taken 
hold of by the agitators as an excuse to 
commence the dispute for political purposes 
and personal vanity." 

"Could not you," I asked, "have come to 
terms with the tenants for a small reduc- 
tion, and so saved the dispute?" 

55 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



"Lord De Freyne cannot afford to accept 
any reduction on the present judicial rents," 
was Mr. Flanagan's reply. "He has large 
payments to make out of the estate, certain 
engagements which were entered into by his 
father, and which he is bound to fulfil. The 
tenants can very well pay, and would be 
quite content to pay if the agitators would 
only leave them alone. Besides they would 
not have been allowed to accept any offer, 
which Lord De Freyne might have been in- 
clined to make. The agitators have forced 
the people into the fight, and they would 
have made them go on with it, in order to 
serve their own political ends." 

"However," continued Mr. Flanagan, "when 
we saw that we were being faced with a de- 
termination on the part of the tenants not 
to pay their rents, we decided to take the 
most powerful weapon we could to fight them. 
Accordingly, instead of proceeding in the 
ordinary County Court, we proceeded by a 
Higher Court. In this way we were able to 
get possession of the holdings three months' 
earlier than we should have done. Of course, 
the costs of going to a higher Court were 
rather heavier than if we had proceeded in 
the ordinary way. But I contend we were 
fully justified in adopting any legitimate 
means to enforce the payment of rent. We 
have been strongly censured for taking this 
course, because the costs in each case, instead 
of being a few pounds have mounted up to 
over £40. But this is due to the tenants 
themselves, or rather to those who are sup- 
posed to be their friends. When we applied 
for powers to take possession of the holdings 
they entered a defence. Of course, they 
could not possibly have any defence, but 
counsel had to be engaged, and a lot of 
legal arrangements had to be gone through. 

56 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



The costs would not have been more than 
£12, if this defence had not been entered. 
No defence was made, and no defence could 
be made, so that all that was gained was a 
delay in execution, and these tremendous 
costs." 

"I am very sorry for some of the tenants," 
said Mr. Flanagan, "who have been dragged 
into this dispute against their will and ruined. 
Numbers of them would have paid their rents 
only they dare not do so. Many of the ten- 
ants dare not be seen coming to the office. 
Some of them would slip a cheque into my 
hand as I walked through the market. Others 
would send their rent by Post, and ask me not 
to send them a receipt." 

"You mean to say then that there has been 
intimidation V 

"Most certainly there has." 

"Well now, Mr. Flanagan, I cannot quite 
understand how it is that the people have, 
as you say, been dragged into this fight, and 
yet there has been intimidation. I can un- 
derstand there being intimidation where it is 
a people's movement, and where a small 
minority who would not join their neigh- 
bours might find things made unpleasant. 
But if this is not a people's movement, if 
they were dragged into it against their will, 
who was going to do the intimidating? You 
can only have intimidation where there is a 
strong popular movement, and the majority 
intimidates the minority. Were there any 
outrages V 

"On one occasion as I was driving home, I 
was struck with a heavy stone, and should 
probably have been assaulted had I not had a 
good horse and been able to get away." 

But Mr. Flanagan," I replied, "some of my 
friends in England, who opposed the war, had 

57 



THE CASE FOB LORD DE FREYNE. 



to endure assaults and intimidation far worse 
than this ; and the Government stood by and 
refused to give any additional protection. 
Can you tell me a single case in which any 
man was intimidated? If you can I will go 
and visit that man, and find out what hap- 
pened?" 

"It is very difficult to give individual 
cases," replied Mr. Flanagan. 

"And now, Mr. Flanagan, let us leave that 
subject for the present. Will you tell me 
what is the real cause for all this trouble? 
What is the economic cause!" 

"The trouble is caused by the congested 
state of the district. These congested dis- 
tricts are caused by the constant re-division 
of the land among members of a family. But 
more particularly by the clearances which 
took place years ago, when the people were 
cleared out of their holdings by hundreds 
and large grazing farms formed. The people 
were originally driven on to the poor lands of 
Connaught by the Cromwellian settlers; and 
the infamous land laws and penal enactments of 
the 18th century. Then again in the famine 
years of 1847 — 48 the people were cleared 
off by hundreds ; but none of these clearances 
took place on the De Freyne estate. Had 
they been cleared off we should not have 
these troubles. 

Through various causes the people were 
forced on to the bogs, where it is im- 
possible for them to make a living on their 
holdings. Their holdings will not produce 
what Mr. T. W. Russell calls an 'economic 
rent.' The people cannot live unless they can 
earn money elsewhere. Hundreds of them 
go to England for the harvest every year." 

"And so pay their rent?" 

58 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE EREYNE. 



"I do not think their rent has anything to 
do with it. Their rent is very small indeed, 
numbers of them only pay .£1 to <£5 a year. 
There are undoubtedly a good many very 
hard cases, and if their rent was wiped out 
altogether they would be unable to make a 
living out of their holdings. Their rents have 
been fixed by the land courts, and what else 
can be done?" 

"Then you think the rent fixed by the 
land courts is a fair rent?" 

"No, I certainly do not say so. It is often 
an unfair rent; unfair to the landlord. In- 
deed, neither landlords nor tenants are satis- 
fied with the decision of the Land Commis- 
sioners. Often enough they do not 
understand the values of the land they 
have to inspect. Then, if you appeal 
there is no more satisfaction to be 
had. The man who is supposed to revalue 
the land has the figures of the first valuer 
before him, and in many cases I have known 
their figures to be absolutely identical." 

"They were simply a copy of the others'?" 

"It would appear so." 

"One more question, Mr. Flanagan, Is 
there any possibility of Lord De Freyne al- 
lowing his tenants to purchase the estates?" 

"Certainly, I think Lord De Freyne would 
sell if he could get his price." 

"And what would his price be?" 

"That I am unable to say; but probably 
the last judicial rent, at thirty years' pur- 
chase." 

"But the tenants can hardly be expected to 
pay that, in face of what is happening on the 
Dillon estate." 

59 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



"And Lord De Freyne cannot afford to take 
less," was Mr. Flanagan's emphatic rejoinder. 

"You are in favour of Land Purchase?" 

"I am strongly in favour of Voluntary Pur- 
chase; but not of compulsory purchase, un- 
less the Government is prepared to ensure 
the landlords against loss. And even then 
I do not think it would be advisable. We 
might in time have an agitation against 
paying the Government's rent, as we have to- 
day against the landlords' rent." 

After this the conversation turned to other 
subjects. Mr. Flanagan turned the tables 
against me by comparing the lot of the Irish 
tenant with that of the slum dwellers in the 
big cities of England. I replied that what we 
wanted in England was a few good agitators. 
I advised Mr. Flanagan to get the Irish land 
question settled, and then send all the agita- 
tors over to England to wake up the British 
working man to a sense of his position and 
power. 

A neighbouring landlord writes as follows : 

Dear Sir, — I understand you desire to hear 
something of the landowners' view of the 
trouble on the French Park estate. I, there- 
fore, note down a few matters which may 
possibly interest you. The owner, Lord De 
Freyne, represents one branch of the ancient 
family of French (or Ffrench). Another 
branch is also ennobled under the title of 
Lord Ffrench (formerly of Castle Ffrench, 
Co. Galway). The present family are 
nearly 300 years settled at French Park. 
They have always been Liberals in politics, 
and always been most liberal in their views 
on religious matters ; not a usual thing with 
Church of England gentry in Ireland. 
Over 100 years ago, when Catholic 

60 



THE CASE FOR LORD DE FREYNE. 



landowners could not leave property 
by will, to their children, the head of the 
French Park family was usually selected by 
those owners, who lived within reach of them, 
as a legatee, of course, in trust, invariably 
carried out faithfully. They always liked, and! 
sought to be popular, and influential amongst 
the people, and always were so, and could 
then always have gathered a larger following 
than any other county family. I often heard, 
when a boy, that they would never refuse a 
bit of land on the estate to any decent work- 
ing man who wanted one. This possibly may 
account for the number of small holdings on 
the property. During the great famine, they, 
and the then owners of the Dillon estate, 
borrowed from Government large sums of 
money, to be expended on land improvement, 
in order to support the people. I have heard" 
on the best authority, that on these two 
estates the population did not diminish dur- 
ing the "famine" years. 

The present agitation is purely political 
and speculative. When th!e Congested Dis- 
tricts Board were allowed to use public money 
to obtain and re-distribute the Dillon pro- 
perty, the great reductions they were en- 
abled to give caused much envy and jealousy 
on the French estate. The Irishman hates 
nothing so much as to see his neighbour get 
anything which he has not got himself. It 
is exactly the feeling of the Gospel labourers, 
who did not like to see others paid as much 
for one hour's labour as they wetfe for 12. 
The feeling is not unnatural, particularly 
amongst people who take much more interest 
in their neighbour's business and circum- 
stances than in their own. A few agitators, 
chiefly local, saw their chance and used it; 
hence the trouble. Yet, Lord De Freyne was, 
and is personally popular, amongst his own 

61 



THE CASE FOB LORD DE FREYNE. 



people. You will, no doubt, have heard how 
he was requested to patronise the local sports, 
in the height of the struggle, and was cheered 
on the ground. I know that h'e was per- 
sonally quite grieved to have this struggle 
forced upon him. But he had no choice, ex- 
cept that between yielding to an unfair and 
tyrannical demand, or resisting it. He chose 
the latter, and is far more respected by the 
people themselves than if he had done other- 
wise. You are, no doubt, aware, that practi- 
cally all the more considerable tenants on 
the estate have now paid the full rent, with 
heavy costs in addition. A pretty good proof 
that their interests in their lands are valu- 
able, and their rents fair; many are low. 
As to the little tenants, about whom we hear 
so much, you will note what I have already 
said as to the old practice on the estate. 
Amongst these I include those who pay from 
£1 to £5 a year. I do not think anyone 
can suppose that a family (say five persons) 
could be supported by the produce of such 
holdings. Yet, in almost all cases the 

holder could get a considerable profit on his 
annual rent, did he let his land for the year 
to his neighbour. But in these holdings the 
rent is rather an "accommodation" than an 
"economic" rent. These men are really la- 
bourers, who like better to live in the 
country, amid wholesome surroundings, how- 
ever poor, than in the slums of a city like the 
London hop picker. I suppose no labourer 
is housed free, anywhere. I think the lot 
of the pauper househplder on the French 
Park estate is beyond all comparison, more 
desirable than that of the ten times more 
numerous workers inhabiting your English 
cities. These migratory labourers all bring 
home substantial earnings, and often are best 
off in years when potatoes and oats have 

failed here. 

62 



THE CASE FOB LORD DE FRETNE. 



Surely no thinking man can believe that a 
reduction of one-third, 33s. 4d. in a £5 rent, 
would make any perceptible difference in the 
comfort of these people. 

You are at perfect liberty to make any use 
you please of anything I say here, but on the 
understanding, which I am sure you will 
observe, that no clue be afforded to the iden- 
tity of the writer. — I am, faithfully yours, 



63 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 



VII. 

THBOTJGH THE DE FKE1JSFE 
ESTATE. 



The Englishman who makes his first visit 
to what are called the disturbed districts of 
Ireland, receives many shocks. Everything 
seems to be governed by rule of contrary; 
everything seems so opposite to what he is 
used to in peaceful England; things seem 
to be upside down. But what is to him most 
mad, is the Government of the country. 
We regard government at home as 
a maternal sort of arrangement, de- 
signed to protect the people from violence, 
robbery and fraud. Our policemen are the 
the friends of all, the enemies of none but 
the worthless. It is something of a shock, 
therefore, when a few hours after leaving our 
shores, one steps into an English-governed 
country where this state of things seems re- 
versed, and the Government is the avowed 
enemy of the people, and the friend of a 
small minority. So when I drove out from 
Castlerea to look through the De Freyne 
estate my first and strangest experience was 
being followed by police, mounted on bicycles 
and fully armed. Why should an unknown 
Englishman, travelling with peaceful intent 
on his holidays through the country be sub- 
jected to such extraordinary police super- 
vision? There is no other country in the 
world, save Russia, where such a state of 
things is possible ; the cause of it is the same 
in both cases. The Government is trying, 
most madly trying to govern the country 

64 



THROUGH THE DE FBETNE ESTATE. 



against the wishes of the people, and so it 
has, what I heard described as the "jumps" ; 
it is afraid and suspicious of everybody who 
enters it. A few miles out we passed one of 
the police huts, with which the De Freyne 
estate is studded; and where five or six 
police are located. The huts are known by 
the people as block houses, and have rifle 
holes in the walls, One soon realises that 
the police are, to all intents and purposes, 
an army in possession of a conquered country. 
And yet the people themselves are not only 
free from crime but free from the spirit of 
hatred and malice, from which crime springs. 
Take an average crowd of Irish peasants, and 
one is struck with the purity of their faces; 
faces which are free from evil passions. 
Faces which are worn and drawn, weather 
beaten and wrinkled, if you like, but there 
is an utter absence of anything which is evil 
or wrong. Mr. William Jones, M.P. (North 
Carnarvon), who was with me on a subse- 
quent journey, was particularly struck with 
this fact. No man with the least knowledge 
of human nature could persuade himself that 
these people would be difficult to rule if 
properlv handled. But there is a fire in 
those wonderful grey eyes, there is an in- 
telligence in those vivacious faces, there is a 
determination, and a pride in those musical 
voices, which tells as plainly as words can 
that they are a people who may be led, but 
will never be driven. 

We drove out through the strangest country 
I have ever seen, curiously reminding me of 
our own black country. Black dismal bog 
everywhere, with here and there little patches 
of green, and hard by each little patch the 
tiny cabin of some poor peasant. They wave 
to us as we drive past, and many a blessing 
comes floating across the still air. A blesst- 

65 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

iiig for the friend who is my guide, who is a 
friend and guide of the people, and who ac- 
cording* to the mad methods of government in 
Ireland has had to surfer imprisonment for 
his faith and friendship. 

Our car stops in the centre of a little 
cluster of cabins, and the children are run- 
ning swiftly towards us. They stop a few 
yards away, and my friend says, "Go and tell 
your mothers there is an English gentleman 
who wants to see them." And away they 
scuttle, little bare feet rushing swiftly over 
rough road and stone, never stopping to pick 
their way. The wind tosses their long hair 
to and fro, while their voices are calling like 
silvery bells. Sturdy little folk they are 
with such perfectly rounded limbs, such 
healthy glow on arms and legs and cheeks 
that one never need despair of the Irish race, 
if only it were possible for them to stay at 
heme. But in a few years' time, when the 
"little gossoons," as my friend calls them, 
have grown to maidenhood and youth they 
must go across the seas; because, although 
there are thousands of Irish acres waiting to 
be tilled, the laws are such that the people 
born on the land must cross the ocean to 
find a home for their industry. But the 
mothers are coming back to us, with the 
children around them ; and here and there 
an old man, feeble and bent with years. In 
the whole crowd as they gather round the car 
there is not a single able-bodied man, all 
such men are in England. I am introduced: 
"This is an English gentleman who has come 
to see you." Then there is such a shaking 
of hands ; "You are welcome to this country, 
sir," is the first greeting from each. But it 
is usually followed by another ; sometimes 
quaint, and generally a blessing. "May the 
Lord be as pleased to see ye, as we are." 

66 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

Or, "May ye be as welcome in Heaven as ye 
are here." "Heaven bless ye, sir, and bring 
ye good luck." I can repeat their greetings, 
bul it would require the brush of an artist 
and the pen of a poet to depict the warmth, 
the fervour, the gratitude, with which they 
are given. "Tis very good of you, indeed, 
sir, to come all this way to see us poor 
people," says one old veteran, who long past 
the time when he can work seems to be held 
in greater reverence by his neighbours. In- 
deed, he is put forward as their spokesman. 
His story, the story of hundreds and thou- 
sands of Irish peasants, I need not give here, 
because I have been trying to give it m what 
I have written. While the ol'd man 
is telling the story of their struggles, I am 
looking more closely into the crowd. The 
faces have lost the first eagerness which il- 
luminated them, and I see now the marks of 
labour and struggle. I see the deep furrows 
of sorrow and pain. I see their clothes are 
threadbare, and the pure pink flesh is but 
barely hidden from the cutting winds. Not 
one ir the crowd, save the old man, has boots 
on his feet. Every woman and child, young 
and old, is standing with bare, toil worn 
feet upon the rough road, and I realise that 
there is a depth of poverty beyond what 1 
had ever seen at home. But they were cluster- 
ing round me closer; the old man has seized 
my hand, and is pouring forth his tale with 
an eloquence which is, at once, picturesque 
and heart rending. Now and then he stops 
for a name, or a date, or a figure. Instantly 
it is supplied by a dozen voices in the waiting 
crowd. The old man's hand clutches me 
tightly, as he tells of the struggles to make 
the rent ; how their sons go to England and 
their daughters to America to send back 
money to help their parents to keep the old 

67 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

heme over their heads. And the women look 
up to me with appealing eyes, and the little 
children too. All the laughter has gone from 
them now ; they look at the Englishman as 
though he were some strange being from a 
far country, who was all powerful to make 
them happy. It is not only the little chil- 
dren, with those big grey questioning eyes 
who think so ; the grown-up children seem 
to think so too. They are thinking that the 
Englishman can help them ; they are think- 
ing of him, not as an unknown unit among 
his people; but as the representative of the 
great nation, which has so long misunder- 
stood and misgoverned them. The old man 
is saying, "If your countrymen would only 
come and see us, we know they would soon 
put things right. But they don't know any- 
thing about us only the lies the Castle tells 
them." How many times was that sentence 
repeated in my ears by other crowds 
in other parts of the west ; nay, 
wherever there is trouble in Ireland 
it is repeated over and over again. 
But, alas, Englishmen do not go to Ireland. 
While the old man is talking I suddenly 
realised how impotent I was to help him or 
the women and children around, who are 
looking up so confidently into my face. There 
was a terrible pathos in it all which made 
me dumb. While he talked I remember 
the generations of Irish peasants, who have 
gone down in the struggle, and yet the old 
man hopes to see the end. I remember, too, 
the vast mass of my countrymen, who have 
neither knowledge nor care for the troubles 
of these poor Connaught peasants. How 
helpless and worse than helpless I felt. Here, 
strangely mingled, were poverty and industry 
beyond my ken. Here were the materials of 
a happy, contented, and prosperous country 

68 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

and people. Here was a crowd of women and 
children ready to be slaves, like beasts of the 
field, if by so doing they could mend their 
lot. A mile away the Dillon tenants were 
making the desert to blossom like the rose; 
and here, because the Government will not 
extend its powers, there is misery and want. 
But the old man had stopped talking, and he 
is waiting, the women are waiting, the chil- 
dren are looking up to see what the English- 
man will say. But he can say nothing, be- 
cause there is a lump in his throat and tears 
in his eyes; because he feels he can do no- 
thing, though he knows what might be done. 
Stilf something must be said, and as he shakes 
hands once more, he manages to tell them 
that if only his fellow countrymen could be 
brought over to Ireland their troubles would 
vanish. But that when he goes back to 
England he will try and tell them all about 
it. One feels it is but a poor consolation to 
offer them, but they seem to realise it is 
offered with all sincerity, and as we drive 
away thev shower their blessings upon us. 
"God bless you, sir," "God save all good 
Englishmen," "God save England," and they 
stand there waving and cheering m _ their 
strange musical Irish way, until a bend in the 
read shuts them out of sight. 

Another mile or two through this dreary 
land of bog and marsh, and we come to an- 
other cluster of cabins. We have the same 
greetings from the children, followed by their 
mothers, and a few old men. This time I 
thought I would question them. The place 
is called Tully. The first woman I speak to 
is Bridget Dillon, who has 6 acres of land, for 
which she is expected to pay £3 15s. a year. 
An Englishman would not give the odd 15s. 
for it. She has reclaimed two acres of bog, 
and is in arrears with her rent. The bog comes 

69 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

up to her very door, and in the winter the 
water comes up too. A quarter of a mile 
away the Dillon tenants are draining their 
lands, and bein^ paid for their work, and here 
they are almost drowned in the winter. 

"Who was it started this fight with Lord 
De Freyne?" I ask. 

"Sure, we started it ourselves, because we 
could not pay the rent." 

"Had not Mr. Dillon or some of the agita- 
tors something to do with it?" 

"Indeed they hadn't. We went to French 
Park to ask Lord De Freyne to give us the 
same as the Dillon tenants, and when we 
got there the gates were shut in our faces." 

"But Lord De Freyne could not afford to 
give such a reduction, perhaps ; would you 
have accepted less? Say, two or three shil- 
lings?" 

"Indeed, we should have been glad to ac- 
cept anything, sir." 

"But why don't you pay your rent, instead 
of making all this trouble?" 

"And how can we pay the rent, sir?" re- 
plied a woman, whose name was Mrs. Cuttle. 
"There's my husband in England for eight 
months in the year, and he sends home all he 
can. But what have I left to pay Lord De 
Freyne. I will not pay him more than is 
just, not if they turn me out of doors." 

There was one man at Tully who is what 
they called "comfortable." He had 8 acres, 
for which he paid £3 lis. 3d. The whole of 
the land had been reclaimed, and the cabin 
built by his father and grandfather. His 
name was John Duffy. He could not have 
earned a living off this 8 acres. But he 
had two sons in England who send home 

70 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 



money. He was a clever man as a cattle 
dealer, and so was able to earn a living. The 
land would not, he said, support his family 
for two months in the year. 

A woman told me she had just put three 
bags of manure upon the land. She had it 
on trust, and the money to pay for it would 
have to come from England. "The shop- 
keepers will always trust us," she added, 
"because they know we will pay when we can. 
If they were to come down on us like the 
landlord there would not be a cow or a calf 
or a pig or a goat left among us." 

At Carrowbehey I spoke to a poor old 
creature, named Catherine Flanagan. She 
was 73 years of age, her hair had long since 
turned grey. She was in a. most pitiable 
condition, and her clothes were almost worn 
to rags, no shoes or stockings on her feet. 
Her husband was too ill to work. She had 2 
acres of land, for which she was expected to 
pay £1 15s. She owed £4 and costs, and had 
received a process for rent. She had no 
cattle at all. She had some potatoes and 
oats. "And how can you work it by your- 
self?" I asked. "I can't work it, sir, I am 
too old; but the neighbours is very good 
to me, and they help me to sow my crop 
and to get it in." As I looked at this poor 
work-worn, broken creature, I understood 
something of the spirit which has animated 
the Irish peasants in the struggle to maintain 
a "home" upon the land. 

Later on I came upon Lord De Freyne and 
his shooting party. Never, surely, has an 
Englishman witnessed such a sight before. 
The party was surrounded by armed police! 
Police in plain clothes were, I was told, 
among the party itself. Of Lord De Freyne's 
beaters not one was a resident on his estate, 

71 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

except his own servants or members of their 
families. 

At Erritt I met Michael Finnigin. He 
built his cabin himself, he reclaimed the land, 
and he has to pay £1 16s. a year for the 
patch. He was £3 9s. in arrears, and the 
costs amounted to £1 14s. Michael could 
not make a living on the land, and has to go 
to England for six months in the year to 
work in gas works, leaving his wife and five 
little ones behind him. 

In the same district I met John and 
Thomas Hevican : brothers, who had a hold- 
ing between them, for which they paid a rent 
of £15 8s. They had been evicted a week 
before (on August 14th), and they were now 
staying in a neighbour's house. They only 
owed one year's rent, and yet proceedings had 
been taken against them and costs put on 
amounting to £84. They told me they and 
their father before them had reclaimed the 
land and built the cabins. They had had 
bad luck last year with the cattle, and illness 
in the family, and could not pay their rent. 

"Who advised you not to pay your rent?" 
I asked. 

" 'Twas no man's advice, sir. We asked 
for a reduction, because we could not pay. 
So we went with the other tenants, and asked 
for a reduction." 

"Do you mean to say you went and did 
this without any of your leaders telling you 
to?" 

"We did, sir ; we wanted to be put on the 
same lines as the Dillon tenants." 

Thomas Hevican, who was telling me this, 
is a very intelligent man ; but, poor fellow, 
he seemed nearly broken down by his misfor- 
tunes. His wife and child were ill and home- 

72 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

less. When they were evicted they were 
roughly handled by the police, and it seems 
they had not recovered from the shock. Later 
on we went into the neighbour's house to 
talk matters over. I was struck with their 
graceful courtesy ; they received me with that 
combination of pleasure and pride, which 
seems to be the natural gift of the Irish 
people. Seated round the turf fire 3 with the 
children standing in the shadows, they told 
me their story. Mrs. John Hevican is a young 
woman of exceptional intelligence and grace; 
she had been a school teacher. "If they 
were all like me," she said. "Lord De Freyne 
should have the land all to himself.' 'But 
what can they do; if they cannot get a bit 
of land, they must go to England or America. 
But they love their country, and so when the 
people were cleared off the land they came 
and settled on the bog. And they could 
manage if they only had enough land at a 
fair rent. Across the river we can see the 
tenants on the Dillon estate, as happy as 
kings in their palaces. They have plenty of 
land, all drained, nice little places, and not 
much more than half the rent we are pay- 
ing. Even if we do try to make our little 
place better the landlord conies down on us 
for more rent. At one time £7 10s. worth 
of land was taken away from us, but we still 
had to pay the same rent," 

Later on I went to look at the Hevican's 
house. I was met by two armed police, and 
the man who was put into possession by Lord 
De Freyne. I tried to take a photo of the 
house. Immediately the emergency man 
rushed at me, and attempted to strike me, 
and used abominable language. But for the 
fact that my friend shouted out, "This is an 
English gentleman," I should have been very 
roughly handled. I afterwards mentioned 
73 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

the matter to Mr. Flanagan, who told me that 
the men who were put in charge of these 
houses were often the very worst and lowest 
characters to be found. 

At Dromod I met Mrs. Ellwood carrying a 
pannier of turf upon her back; she had to 
carry it over a mile. She has four children, 
and has lost her husband. She has five acres 
for which she pays £3. She grows potatoes 
and oats, doing all the work herself. 

Conor Kilgarif, of Dromod, was in Eng- 
land. He sends home £2 a month. His 
rent is £3 13s., and he is £7 6s. in ar- 
rears. His wife is ill, and the doctor orders 
her food and nourishment, which she can- 
not buy ; there are several small children. 
They have only potatoes to live upon ; this 
year's crop is very poor. Mrs, Kilgarrif has 
been too ill to work the land. 

Pat Mahon, of Cloonmaul, was also in 
England. His wife is dead ; a daughter and 
little ones were at home. Pat has 7 acres, 
at £4 10s. He only owes one year's rent, 
but he has been taken into Court, and the 
costs amount to nearly £40. The daughter, 
who was a fine intelligent girl, said her father 
would return home in November. But the 
order for the eviction of his helpless children 
was already issued. There will probably be 
no home for Pat when he comes back from 
England. 

At Fairy mount I came across John Sharkey, 
an old man of eighty, who lived with his 
son Pat. Pat has lost his wife, and has nine 
little children. They had 11 acres, for which 
they paid £7 1 0s. ; they owed four years' 
rent, and the costs against them were £39 
10s. They had been evicted, and I saw the 
armed police in charge of the little cabin. 

74 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

And yet during the last two years they had 
paid three years' rent.; that is the regular 
rent and a year off the arrears! The old 
man told me his story in a broken sort of 
way. How he had gone to England, when 
he was a young man, and stayed there until 
he had earned £70. Then he came home and 
took a patch of bog land and 
reclaimed it, built the cabin with his own 
hands, and married. But there was no living 
to be made on the place, and when he was 
old he would never have managed, only his 
sons in America sent him help. I went to 
the cabin where the old man was staying, and 
found that the children were sleeping on the 
floor, so that he could rest, I took a photo 
of the group, and as I came away they waved 
to me as long as I was in sight, and shouted 
"God save England." 




An Evicted Family sheltered by their 
neighbours. 

[The old man dressed in black and standing in the 
doorway on the left of the picture is Jno. Sharkey, 
Mr. Patrick Conry, C.C., is standing in the fore- 
ground.! 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 



James Rodgers, of Branean, an old man 
of seventy, has five acres, which he reclaimed 
from the bog ; he built his cabin with his own 
hands. He owes two years' rent, and has 
been served with a process- He has paid 
rent for forty-three years. He could not have 
struggled on only a son in Leeds has sent 
him money, and sent money to send hi9 
sister to America; now both send help to 
the old man. Every inch of the soil was 
made valuable by the work of the tenant; 
in forty-three years he has purchased the 
original value of the land ten times over, and 
yet if he cannot find the money Lord De 
Freyne will seize the little cabin, and the old 
man will be turned out. 

Martin Roddy, of Cloonmaul, has a few 
acres for which he used to pay £2 13. He 
now pays £8 1 Os. ; the increased value being 
due to his own labour. Martin would have 
appealed against this extortion, but when the 
Commissioners came round he was in arrears 
with his rent, and he knew if he appealed he 
would be proceeded against to recover the 
arrears, and be turned out. So he has had 
to go on paying a heavy rent ever since. 

Dominick O'Doherty, of Cloonmaul, has 
another little patch of bog, which he has re- 
claimed ; the cabin he built, but could not 
make a living. He is 65 years of age, and 
has been to England every year for 45 years, 
in order to earn money to live. 

And so I could go on reciting case after 
case, which show conclusively that it is im- 
possible for the people to live on the land, 
under present conditions, But enough has 
been said to make this perfectly clear. I 
think, however, a word should be said respect- 
ing arrears of rent. The tenants' arrears of 
rent are not only responsible for keeping the 
tenants out of the Land Courts, and a just 

76 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

valuation of rent, but are the means by which 
Lord De Freyne has held a whip over the 
people. I will conclude by quoting from the 
report of the appeal of Messrs Fitz Gibbon 
and Webb, heard before Judge O'Connor 
Morris : — 

Mr. Fitz Gibbon said he had quite recently 
seen a tenant who had eight in family. He 
had only two acres of land, and two acres of 
bog, which he reclaimed. This tenant told 
him that he owed arrears which he would 
never be able to pay, and that if he went 
into the Land Court the landlord would come 
down on him. This man paid in '97 one 
year's rent; in August, '99, he paid 1} years' 
rent and £3 17s. costs; in May, 1900, he 
paid £1 18s. lOd. ; on the 30th of January, 
1901, he paid one year's rent; and on the 
4th of September, 1901, he paid £1 18s. lOd. 
A few days ago this tenant received a sum- 
mons to give up possession. 

Judge O'Connor Morris: I have judicial 
knowledge that there was a great accumula- 
tion of arrears ; and you know that Lord De 
Freyne did remit a considerable amount of 
those arrears, and did it under considerable 
pressure on my part. 

Mr. Fitz Gibbon : The pressure had a very 
good effect as long as Mr. Blakeney was 
agent. But it: will surprise you that the coin- 
pact entered into between Lord De Freyne 
and the tenants at the time has not been 
kept, and that Mr. Flanagan, the present 
agent, is bringing arrears against the people 
— arrears that should have been wiped out by 
that arrangement. 

Judge O'Connor Morris: I have all my 
life set my face against this accumulation of 
arrears ; and in the year 1894 I made a very 
determined stand to compel a reduction and 

77 



THROUGH THE DE FREYNE ESTATE. 

an annihilation of these arrears. I under- 
stood, and distinctly understood, that Lord 
De Freyne was to get two years' rent, and 
was to wipe off all the arrears. 

Mr. Fitz Gibbon : That has not been done, 
my lord. 

Judge O'Connor Morris : In consequence of 
this very Lord De Freyne estate, and in con- 
sequence of the very strong stand I made on 
that occasion, an Act of Parliament was pass- 
ed by which the landlord can no longer re- 
cover more than two years' arrears. 

Mr. Fitz Gibbon : Do you know that he 
didn't wipe out the arrears on the payment of 
two years' rent? 

Judge O'Connor Morris : I am very sorry 
to hear that he didn't. Lord De Freyne's 
tenants might have a good cause of com- 
plaint, and quite independently of this I 
think they have a good cause of complaint. 

Mr. Fitz Gibbon : In one year a poor 
widow on the estate has paid five years' rent ; 
and here she is served with a summons, and 
the last payment is the 23rd of May, 1901. 



78 



EVICTIONS. 



VIII. 
EVICTIONS. 



Ireland is a land of sorrow and tears. 
Sorrows and tears which might easily be 
turned to joy and laughter by the simple 
operation of Land Purchase. But the pres- 
ent condition of the country produces only 
misery. Englishmen who cling to their 
homes and their family circle, should at least 
spare a little practical sympathy for the Irish 
people who, from their youth upwards, are 
constantly being called upon by a ruthless 
system of land tenure to sever those ties 
which all men have come to regard as most 
sacred and precious. Human and family 
bonds deeply imbedded within our social rela- 
tionships are the strongest bulwark of national 
stability and prosperity. Yet, in Ireland, 
such bonds are no sooner formed within the 
hearts and lives of the rising generation than 
they are hopelessly broken. Here are the 
cold hard facts, (taken from an official re- 
port), which so soon overshadow the family 
life of the Irish child in the west : — 

"Two special trains per week are despatched 
from Westport during the season, with email 
farmers setting out to work as labourers on 
the farms and in the ironworks and mines of 
England. There are two sailings per week from 
Westport to Glasgow and Liverpool, by which 
the migratory labourers, male and female, 
leave their homes to earn money for the sup- 
port of their families. The population is further 
depleted by two special trains per week of 
emigrants proceeding to America by Queens- 
town, the latter being almost exclusively young 
people from 15 to 35, in the flower of their age 
and strength.-" 



EVICTIONS. 



Beneath this plain official statement of one 
of the crudest facts of Irish life, there is a 
world of sorrow and anguish, which no words 
of mine can picture. 

Sudden partings, 

Such as press the life from out young hearts 
And choking sighs which ne'er might be 
repeated. 

The scene at the stations as these trains 
leave is terrible. Fathers and mothers, torn 
with gentle firmness from the embraces of 
their children by the railway officials, as the 
train prepares to start on its journey. Yet 
they run along the platform, and by the side 
of the line crying the last farewell, the last 
blessing, until exhausted nature compels them 
to fall down by the wayside. It is bad 
enough to witness such a sight as this; but 
in the tragedy of Irish life there is a still 
darker scene, when the people are hurled 
forth from the little cabins, around which all 
their love and labour of their lives has 
centred for a generation or more. I will try 
and describe what I saw on the De Freyne 
estate one fatal Friday in August last. 

We started from Castlerea with the sun 
shining, Mr. William Jones, M.P., Mr. Coun- 
cillor Roberts, of Liverpool, Mr. John Fitz 
Gibbon, Mr. T. M. Carey, of the Freeman's 
•Journal, and myself. At Loughlynn we fell 
in with the eviction party; Mr. Flanagan, 
Lord De Freyne's agent; Mr. Boris Shields, 
the Sheriff ; County Inspector O'Connell, 
District Inspector Supple, District Inspector 
Hetreed, and a body of police, sixty strong 
and fully armed. When I saw this large force, 
knowing that they only had women and chil- 
dren to contend with, I was not greatly im- 
pressed by the majesty of the law in Ireland, 



EVICTIONS. 



or the English Government which prostitutes 
it to such ignoble uses. A war on women and 
children does not increase an Englishman's 
pride in the political genius of his country- 
men. Soon after we left Loughlynn, in the 
midst of the "troops" it commenced to ram, 
a pitiless soaking rain, such as one only ex- 
periences in Ireland. 

The first victim was an old man, named 
Thomas Mahon, of Curroghiel. The police 
soon had a cordon round the house with their 
carbines ready for any resistance. But poor 
Mahon, old and broken in health, with eleven 
children, the voungest of whom was only four 
years old, could not have resisted a single 
constable. The house seemed deserted; the 
door stood open, and a tabby cat sat calmly 
by washing itself. Puss alone seemed uncon- 
scious of what was happening. Outside the 
armed cordon a large crowd of women and chil- 
dren had gathered, groaning and hooting the 
a^ent and police. The Sheriff and Agent ad- 
vanced to the door, with an escort, and in- 
side the old man his wife and children were 
huddled in a corner, the elder ones crying 
bitterly, the smaller children looking on with 
wide-opened frightened eyes. Very quickly 
they were turned out into the pitiless ram, 
and I trembled for the tiny ones, scantily clad 
and barefoot. The few articles of furniture 
were bundled out too, and then Lord De 
Freyne's representative took possession. 

Mr. William Jones, who seemed deeply 
touched, spoke comforting words to the home- 
less family ; and between their broken sobs 
we slowly gathered their story. Mahon had 
five acres of land, and owed £10 rent, to 
which had been added £40 17s. 8d. costs. 
He had paid his rent regularly up to two years 
aero. But he had been ill, and unable to go 
to England to work, hence he was not only 



ST 



EVICTIONS. 



unable to pay his rent, but would have starv- 
ed but for the fact that the shopkeepers had 
trusted him. There was just one golden ray 
of hope in the midst of all this gloom. The 
Irish people are true to each other in their 
struggle for life. And Mr. Patrick Webb, 
who had joined us, promised that the family 
should not want for food, and a man named 
Thomas Mahoney, who himself has four in 
family promised to find them shelter for the 
night. 

We drove away to the next victim of land- 
lordism, a Mrs. Bridget Naspsey, of Whiles- 
town. Mrs. Naspsey is an old woman, who 
has been a widow for fifteen years. Her's 
was a very poor little cabin, which could only 
be reached by walking up a swampy track. 
She had ten acres of land, three acres of 
which her husband had reclaimed. Her rent 
was £9 5s., and only one year was owing. 
Again we had the same ceremony as before, 
the cordon c f police, the groaning crowd, the 
parley between the agent and the tenant, 
then the eviction. Needless to say the poor 
old creature offered no resistance to the 
troops. She told Mr. Flanagan she would 
have paid her rent, if she possibly could, 
but that she ha'cl not the money. How she 
had ever managed to pay at all was a com- 
plete mystery to the Englishmen who were 
present. However, the old woman was put 
(•lit into the rain, and her scraps of furniture, 
a bed, a table, and two chairs, after her. 
While this was being done her daughter en- 
tered the house and attempted to take out 
with care some article for which she had a 
special regard. She was immediately seized 
by the throat by a ruffianly constable, who 
would have hurled her out. Fortunately I 
happened to be standing near, and I was able 
to prevent this. 



EVICTIONS. 



The police in Ireland stand in wholesome^ 
dread of what an Englishman may do or say. 
They will treat a representative Irishman, 
whether he be a Member of Parliament or a 
County Councillor, with indifference and often 
impudence; their behaviour towards these 
gentlemen is what might be expected from 
irregular troops in possession of a conquered! 
country. But an unknown Englishman is an 
unknown quantity. Possessing unknown in- 
fluence perhaps; a man whose word may 
reach Dublin Castle. Hence he is respected! 
and his good opinion frequently sought 
after. I was told that but for the 
presence of Englishmen nobody would 
have been allowed within the police 
cordon, and a good deal of unnecessary vio- 
lence would have taken place. That this was 
probably a true estimate of what would have 
happened, may be gathered from the fact 
that the same constable, to whom I referred 
above, Head Constable McGowaUj most brut- 
ally assaulted Bridget O'Donnell, a girl of 
14, when he happened to have a chance of 
doing so without being observed. A number 
of children were groaning at the police, and 
McGowan, who wasjiear them, was walking 
his cycle under the shadow of a bank. Thus 
hid from view he suddenly rushed his machine 
at the girl and knocked her down. I and 
Mr. Jones came up a minute or two after, 
when the girl had been picked up, and were 
shown the marks of where the wheel had 
passed over her. I was informed that this 
man is a notorious character^ who has been 
promoted for his conduct on similar occasions. 
It was not, therefore, surprising that the 
women and children shouted "Sherridan," 
wherever he appeared. I must, say, however, 
that with a few exceptions, the police be- 
haved very well. Mr. O'Connell and Mr. 

83 



EVICTIONS. 



Supple handled them in an excellent manner, 
and did their best to prevent unnecessary 
violence on the part of the men. Some of 
the constables are excellent fellows, but there 
is a larger proportion of depraved brutal 
faces among the R.I.C. than any other body 
of men it has been my experience to meet. 
Some of the better men told me 3 in private 
conversation, that it is these ruffianly char- 
acters who are marked out for promotion. 

The next to be evicted was Bernard King. 
Here, for the first time., was something ap- 
proaching resistance. King is a young man, 
and years ago he had promised his old grand- 
mother, who built the house, that he would 
never give it up without a struggle. Ac- 
cordingly he had barricaded his door. His 
wife remained with him inside, but the chil- 
dren were in charge of the neighbours. When 
the police had surrounded the house King ap- 
peared at the window, and asked to see Mr. 
Flanagan. He was willing to pay two years' 
rent, but he could not pay the costs, some 
£40. But Mr. Flanagan would cot accept 
anything less than half the rent with half 
the costs down, and a bill for the remainder. 

"I can't pay that Mr. Flanagan," replied 
King. "I have not got it to pay. I don't 
want the land, Lord De Freyne can have his 
land. I only want to keep the house me old 
grandmother built. Sure she would turn in 
her grave if I give up the old house." 

Then the Sheriff stepped forward, and said 
he must take possession. 

U I won't give it up," replied the desperate 
man. "I have paid that man every penny I 
could. Why didn't he send me a civil bill, 
and then I would have paid. Why did he 
send me neighbours a civil bill, and make me 
pay all these costs. How can I ever raise up 
my head from poverty, if he makes me pay 

84 



EVICTIONS. 



these costs, I don't want the land, I only 
want the house, and I'll fight for the house 
that me old grandmother gave me." 

Meanwhile an immense crowd had gathered, 
but there was no interference when the Sheriff 
proceeded to attack the house with pick-axe 
and crow-bar. Very soon the door was 
smashed in, the stones behind cleared away, 
and the police were in possession. Poor 
King was taken, bravely struggling to the 
last against the attack which had been made 
simultaneously front and rear. I shall never 
forget the man's agonising struggles, and his 
lamentations that he had not held the house. 
Mr. William Jones did his best to quieten 
the poor fellow, as he vainly struggled in 
the grasp of two stalwart constables. 

Suddenly his wife caught sight of hina, and 
made a rush to his rescue. A policeman roughly 
pushed her back, and fearing the woman 
would be hurt, I caught her and held her as 
gently as I could. For a time she struggled, 
but gradually gave in, and then, leaning her 
head upon my shoulder, sobbed, as only a 
woman weeps when death has robbed her of 
her child. Presently Mr, Jones joined me, 
and we said what we could to comfort her. 
We asked her to tell us all about her trouble, 
and as the sobs lessened she gradually told 
the story. She was a delicate refined woman, 
with wonderful grey eyes, that filled as they 
were with despair would have moved the 
hardest heart. Her story was only one of 
a thousand such stories, of money saved in 
America and sunk for ever in an Irish bog. 
She told us how she had gone to America, 
when she was a girl, and for years had sent 
home money for her parents. Then how she 
had worked and saved for H years, until she 
had £H3 in the bank. How proud she was 
to come back to her "boy" with her money. 
85 



EVICTIONS. 



Bernard had worked hard, and had 
made a road down to the bog and 
drained the land. All her money- 

had gone into the land; they had paid £60 
in four years, and they had no arrears. 
Though their money was all gone into the 
land they might have managed to pay part, 
if it had not been for those dreadful costs. 
Then she began to tell us how happy they 
had been, how proud they were of 
the little place, proud of their three 
little ones, how she hoped and worked for 
better times, but now all was gone. These 
memories brought back tears again, and the 
poor heart-broken woman made a half defiant, 
half-pleading effort to get away from me, 
and join her husband, who was still vainly 
trying to break loose from his captors. This, 
I knew, would only mean more distress and 
probably violence. Leaving Mr. Jones with 
her, I went beyond the cordon of police, and 
found her baby in charge of a neighbour. 
I had the little one, only three months old, 
brought to the mother. The baby held out 
its little hands to its mother, a smile broke 
through her tears, she ceased to try to get 
away, and taking her baby in her arms she 
was led away to the quiet of a neighbour's 
house. 

The police left the scene of the eviction, 
amid the groans of the people. And, as last 
of all, our car moved off the groans turned 
to cheers and blessings. Those who were 
strongest, and best able, followed us for fully 
a mile, cheering as they ran. 

The evictions were continued the following 
day. There was the same force of police, 
although only women were being proceed- 
ed against. The following account of the 
day's proceedings was written by Mr. T. M. 
Carey, of the Freeman's Journal, a gentle- 



EVICTIONS. 



man, with whom I had the privilege of becom- 
ing intimately acquainted, and of whose abili- 
ties, as a journalist, and personal .character, I 
had good opportunity of judging and of form- 
ing a very high estimate : — 

The scene of operations was in the Lough- 
glynn district. Three families were evicted. 
There was only one English spectator, Mr. 
G. Wallace Carter, of Lincoln. Mr. John 
Fitz Gibbon, of Castlerea, and Mr. Denis 
Johnston, United Irish League Organiser, 
were present throughout the proceedings. 
They were everywhere received by the evicted 
families and the assembled crowds of country 
people with warm expressions of greeting, 
and were frequently cheered most enthusi- 
astically. The weather was fine, except for 
an occasional shower. It is only right to say 
that Head Constable M'Gowan was quite well- 
behaved to-day. 

Having proceeded a short distance the 
eviction party halted at a gateway, which] 
opened into a rugged path leading through 
a cutaway bog, to the house of Mrs. Catherine 
Conry, of Clonboney. The holding lies in a 
particularly congested district, there being no 
less than forty-two families living on one 
hundred acres. The houses are pretty close 
to one another in two parallel lines, stretch- 
ing along at the base of a slight eminence, 
on either side of it. Mrs. Conry occupies 
thirteen acres, the yearly rent being £5 15s. 
6d. The arrears of rent claimed amounted to 
over £28, and the costs to £40 15s., in ad- 
dition, making about £70 in all. The ten- 
ant has been a widow for the past eleven 
years, and, as she stated to me, her husband 
had been sick in bed for over eleven years 
before his death, "with me and the children 
feeding him," as she put it. She has two 

87 



EVICTIONS. 



sons at home, one of them in ill-health since 
last December, and one son is working in 
England, and she has two daughters in 
America. The evicting party, on making 
their appearance, were received with cries of 
denunciation by a crowd gathered near the 
house, principally composed of women and 
girls. Mr. Fitz Gibbon and Mr. Johnston 
were warmly welcomed, and a similar greet- 
ing was extended to Mr. Carter, when it be- 
came known that he was a sympathetic Eng- 
lishman. The Sheriff's representative and 
Mr. Flanagan entered the house through the 
open door, accompanied by several policemen. 
Mrs. Conry's invalid son, a young man of 
about twenty-eight years of age, was sitting 
by the fireside, a big frieze coat buttoned 
around him. His face bore evident traces of 
severe illness and the listlessness of the in- 
valid which he displayed were in painful con- 
trast with the healthy looks and bright de- 
meanour of the girls and young men en- 
countered in the district. Mr. Flanagan ap- 
proached Mrs. Conry, and a conversation en- 
sued between them. 

Mrs. Conry (addressing Mr. Flanagan) said : 
You know I cannot pay costs. Why didn't 
you send me a civil bill? 

Mr. Flanagan : If you wished to buy your 
farm in Roscommon you could do it. 

Mrs. Conry : I had nothing to do with it. 

Mr. Flanagan : You left it in the hands of 
your friends, who destroyed you. There waa 
not a penny piece to pay except a year's 
rent. 

Mrs. Conry : I would pay it if I had it. 
You cannot take blood out of a turnip. 

Mr. Flanagan : Why not ask me for time? 

Mrs. Conry : I did ask you above in the 
field. I will pay two years' rent. 

88 



EVICTIONS. 



Mr. Flanagan said the eviction would have 
to proceed. 

Mrs. Conry and her invalid son were then 
removed from the house, the son seating him- 
self on a box in the yard. Some of the 
furniture had been already removed, and the 
bailiffs proceeded to dislodge the remainder. 

Mrs. Conry again spoke out, and said: I 
will sell all and pay eleven guineas, that is 
two years' rent. But I won't pay any costs. 
Approaching Mr. Flanagan she asked what his 
claim against her was. 

Mr. Flanagan said there was £40 15s. in 
costs, and there was over £28 rent due. 
She should pay the whole of the rent due to 
last May, and half the costs in cash, and she 
should give a bill for the other half. Turning 
to Mr. "Carter, Mr. Flanagan added: "She 
allowed her farm to be sold by the Sheriff 
in Roscommon. She hadn't a penny-piece to 
pay in costs, but she would not be allowed by 
her friends." Mr. Flanagan subsequently 
took occasion to correct this statement, and 
informed Mr. Carter that, though in the vast 
majority of cases there were no claims for 
costs against the tenants at the time of the 
sale, there was a claim against Mrs. Conry 
for £6 costs. 

Mrs. Conry : I have no one to blame but 
myself. Look at my boy over there (point- 
ing to her sick son). 

Mr. Carter subsequently expressed the hop© 
that her son would soon be better, 

Mrs. Conry : It is in the hands of God. 
Blessed be His holy name. Lord De Freyne 
would not like to be put out of his own castle, 
and my house is as good to me as his castle is 
to him. 

Speaking to Mrs. Conry's son, 
89 



EVICTIONS. 



from him the circumstances under which he 
became ill. He is twenty-eight years, and 
has been accustomed for a number of years 
to go to England every year to work. Last 
summer he went to Birmingham and obtain- 
ed employment, working in the sewers of that 
city. Shortly after his return ho,me in 
December last he became ill, and he attri- 
buted his illness to the circumstances under 
which the labour in the sewers was carried 
on. What a picture the statement suggests! 
This young fellow, leaving the invigorating 
breezes blowing over the bogs of his native 
Koscommon and exchanging its healthy, open- 
air life for miserable toil in the sewers of a 
grimy English city ; returning home with hia 
modest savings ; spending months of weary 
illness, in bed one day, sitting wearily by the 
fireside the next ; and in the end, while yet 
an invalid, cast out of the little home erect- 
ed probably by the labour of his ancestors, 
at the behest of a. gentleman whom the toil 
of men like him and of women and young 
girls, too, enables to sit in lordly ease in his 
Castle of French Park! 

The effects of Mrs. Conry having been re- 
moved from the house, the emergency men 
proceeded to bring their furniture and pro- 
visions from the transport cart. During the 
journeys between the cart and the house cries 
of execration and sarcastic observations were 
directed towards them by the girls present, 
and an occasional rush was made at them, 
as they passed into the house. The girls 
seemed eager to lay violent hands upon them, 
but their design was frustrated by the police. 
A touch of comedy was given to the proceett- 
ings when the time came to clear the lands. 
A goat obstinately resisted the attempts of 
the bailiffs to drive him off, and they chased 
him hither and thither to the great enjoy- 

90 



EVICTIONS. 



ment of the onlookers. Ultimately he took 
refuge in a cabbage garden, and there they 
left him. An emergency man was installed 
in the house, and a force of police detached 
to protect him. 

Lesiving Mrs. Conry's the party again took 
to iheir cars, and journeyed towards the hold- 
ing jointly occupied by Mrs. Freeman and 
Mr». Catherine Moran at Kilrudaune. Mrs. 
Freeman's house was first visited. It was ap- 
proached from the main road by a long and 
winding boreen. There are about six acres 
in the entire holding, which is evenly divid- 
ed between the two tenants. The joint rent 
is £5 4s. 6d. The amount of rent and ai*- 
rears due up to the 1st of May last was £28 
17s. 6d., and the amount of the costs £41 
17s. 6d. A month ago Mrs. Freeman's two 
cows were seized, and were sold by the sheriff 
at French Park. They were bought in by the 
friends of the tenant, and realised £13 5s. 
Mrs. Freeman occupied a substantially built, 
comfortable-looking, cleanly-kept dwelling, 
consisting of three good-sized apartments. K 
zinc-roofed out-office, suitable for the shelter 
of cattle, was in keeping with the rest of the 
buildings. How did they come to be erected ? 
Let Mrs, Freeman tell in her own words : "I 
went and paid a shilling a load for every 
stone I put in this house. I had only a little 
clay hut until my little family grew up. They 
went to America and sent me what helped 
me to build this house along with their 
father, and I have it not warm now when I am 
put out of it," Her daughter completed the 
story when she said : "Many a load of stones 
I brought on my back for it." 

Mrs. Freeman stated that her husband 
and one of her boys were working at present 
in England. Some of the arrears were run- 

91 



EVICTIONS. 



ning for the past twenty years, and she was 
willing to pay them off by degrees if the 
landlord allowed her. She thought she was 
out of danger after her cows had been seized. 
A large number of women and girls were as- 
sembled near the house when Mr. Flanagan 
and his party appeared. They groaned the 
unwelcome visitors vigorously. 

Mr. Flanagan approached Mrs. Freeman 

and said : Any chance of settling ? 

Mrs. Freeman : You sold my cattle. That 
ought to go a good way towards settling for 
a while, until my men earn for me. 

Mr. Flanagan : You will get credit for 
whatever they fetched. 

Mrs. Freeman : If one halfpenny bought 
my land out now I haven't it. You got £13 
5s. for my cattle, and I don't know where it 
went. Of course I can't pay any more at 
this present time. 

Mr. Flanagan indicated that the eviction 
should proceed, and the bailiffs set themselves 
to the task of removing the furniture. 

Among the articles put out of the house 
was a cake, whose baking was still unfinished 
when the eviction party arrived. Mrs. Free- 
man's mother, an old lady between eighty 
and ninety years of age, was among the mem- 
bers of the family evicted. Mr. Carter and 
Mr. Johnston were able to take interesting 
photographs of a group representing the four 
generations, extending from Mrs. Freeman's 
mother down to a little baby in arms, the 
child of a married daughter. Having com- 
pleted Mrs. Freeman's eviction and placed 
an emergency man in occupation, the party 
proceeded to the residence of Mrs. Moran, 
close by. She has been a widow for twenty- 
six years, and part of her house, too, was 

92 



EVICTIONS. 



built by the money given to her by her 
daughter, since dead, who earned it in 
America. She stoutly resisted leaving the 
house, and " was being forcibly removed by 
the Sheriff when Mr. Carter intervened and 
gently nersuaded her to leave peaceably so 
as to avoid being hurt. During the process 
of furnishing Mrs. Freeman's house with stores 
from the transport cart the assembled women- 
folk kept up a running fire of adverse com- 
ment, directed principally towards Mr. Flana- 
gan and the emergency men, the police, too, 
coming in for a share of it. Mr. Fitz Gibbon 
at length advised the people to go to their 
homes. 

Mrs. Moran's eviction was the last for the 
day. Mr. Flanagan drove back to his resi- 
dence still escorted by police. Mr. Fitz 
Gibbon, Mr. Johnston and Mr. Carter were 
warmly cheered before they took their de- 
parture, and were followed by the blessings of 
the warm-hearted people. 



1)3 



OBSERVATIONS. 



SOME OBSEKYATIONS. 



I think I have described at sufficient 
length the evils of the present condition of 
land tenure in Ireland, and the ease with 
which these evils might be removed by a 
complete system of Land Purchase. Nearly 
every Irishman, landlord or tenant, agrees 
that Land Purchase is the only remedy. 

For centuries we have been trying to govern 
Ireland and have failed. Neither Coercion 
nor concessions have succeeded, for the simple 
reason that the evil is far deeper than 
either of those methods could remove. At 
last, however, we have a solution of the diffi- 
culty, which Irishmen of all parties agree 
would pacify the country, and which, so far 
as it has been tried, has already proved a 
most gratifying success. 

At the same time Englishmen must be con- 
tent to make some sacrifices, if they are to get 
rid of the Irish incubus. But that sacrifice 
will be rather an investment in good govern- 
ment than a permanent gift. We have paid 
heavily in the past, for the coercion of Ire L 
land. Surely it would be better to continue 
those payments for a period, in order to buy 
out the freehold of Irish discontent. We can- 
not expect to establish peace between laud- 
lord and tenant, without some cost to 
ourselves. But that expenditure) will be 
one of the best investments the British Em- 
pire has ever made. Our capital would be 
perfectly safe, and our interest equally sure. 
We have this on the word of the present 
Chief Secretary for Ireland. 

94 



OBSERVATIONS. 



The investment will be as follows. Be- 
tween the price at which the Irish landlords 
can afford to sell their lands, and the price at 
which the tenants can afford to purchase, so as 
to be remunerative, there is a margin which 
has been reckoned at from two to four years 
rental. It is this margin which England will 
be asked to make up. Now, according to the 
report of the commission on the financial re- 
lations between England and Ireland, the 
latter country has paid very considerably 
more than her share of Imperial taxation. 
There is thus due to Ireland from this country 
a sum of money which would more: than cover 
the margin between the selling price of the 
landlords and the buying price of the tenants. 
If Englishmen are willing to give that 
sum they will not only be returning to Ire- 
land money which is legally due to her, but by 
the pacification of the country which would 
follow, they will be securing for themselves 
and the Empire the extinction of the Irish 
trouble. Let us remember that an end of 
that trouble means not only a peaceful Ire- 
land, but a better understanding with 
America, and happier relationships with our 
Colonies, and every other country to which 
Irishmen have been driven by our misrule. 

Land Purchase, sooner or later, must 
become universal in Ireland, and perhaps it 
is not too early to utter a word of warning 
as to one or two dangers which should be 
guarded against. One or two landlords and 
several Unionists, in conversation with me on 
the subject, urged that if Land Purchase 
became general in ten years' time the same 
evils would return, only in a milder form, 
They say a new race of landlords would arise 
clever, grasping men, who would buy up the 
farms and exact the uttermost farthing from 
the unfortunate tenants. 



OBSERVATIONS. 



But what seems to me more probable is 
the danger that men, who are not de- 
pendent upon the land, will endeavour to get 
hold of it. To some extent this is already 
true. I heard of a case in which an extensive 
landlord in the West of Ireland had pur- 
chased a large tract of land, under the Ash- 
bourne Act. There is also the danger of 
the land being sold in large quantities, and 
of men adding field to field, so that the pres- 
ent congested districts will not be relieved. 

To meet these and other dangers I think 
the Act might bei safeguarded as follows : — 

(1.) In the congested districts, at least, the 
extent of a single holding should not exceed 
£50 value. Many think it. should not exceed 
£25 value. 

That, in these districts no man should 
be allowed to purchase more than would make 
the total value of his holding over £50. 

(2). That in case any tenant is unable to 
continue his payments the number of years 
should be extended, so that the only effect of 
arrears will be to prolong the! purchasing 
period. 

(3). That the Government, or Local Au- 
thorities., should havei power to advance money 
to the tenants in proportion to the value of 
their holdings, or thei amount, of their interest 
in the holdings; but no mortgage should be 
permitted in any case until the purchase is 
completed. 

(4). That a strict limit should be placed on 
the sub-division of land. 

(5). That in all future sales or transfers of 
land, which has been originally purchased 
under an Act. of Parliament, the Government 
or local authorities should have the first option 
of purchasing at market prices. 

96 



OBSERVATIONS. 



(6). That none but bona-fide agricultural 
tenants, or labourers, should be given the 
first option of purchasing land under the 
Act. 

(7). That the Commission which values, the 
land shall be so constituted as to gain the con- 
fidence of the people,, and its charges shall 
not be borne by either landlord or tenant, 

That, the Act shall be administered 
through County Councils, by a National Com- 
mission, composed of representatives of the 
County Councils, or some other authority, in 
whom the tenants will have confidence. 

(8). That local authorities should have ex- 
tensive powers to purchase land for public im- 
provements, provision of municipal dwellings, 
small holdings, etc. 

Most of the above suggestions have met 
with the cordial approval of Irishmen on both 
sides of the question. I only mention them 
here, because, to a certain extent, they may 
meet the objections of those who believe in 
land nationalisation, and also of those who 
see nothing but evil in the Government- be- 
coming the sole landlord of Ireland. 

I should like to suggest that as there has al- 
ready been several large purchases under the 
Ashbourne Act, and in some cases sales have 
been made to men whom the Act was not in- 
tended to benefit, that a return be asked for 
giving the names, addresses and professions of 
all purchases under the various purchase Acts, 
the extent of their purchases, and the extent 
of any other holdings: either owned or rented 
by them. 

There are many other aspects of Land Pur- 
chase, which will require careful attention, 
and detailed explanation. But the purpose of 
what I have written being only for popular 
use, I do not think it is necessary or desir- 
97 



OBSERVATIONS. 



able to enter into details here. Once popular 
opinion has approved of compulsory pur- 
chase, the particulars of the final scheme may 
safely be left to the representatives of the 
landlords and tenants. When that day comes 
we shall have learnt the way in which to 
unitedly translate into deeds the prayer so 
long uttered in divided camps, "God save Ire- 
land." 



THE END. 



